Chapter Text
Is there ever really such a thing as too late? Wyatt knows all too well that there is a ‘too soon.’ He’s lived ‘too soon’ since he was ‘too soon’ to do so.
It was too soon to move out of his parents house at 16, but he had to go. He was tired of his gear reeking of cigarettes and cat piss and the orange door tags that would appear every now and then that made his stomach hurt.
It was too soon to marry his high school sweetheart, Lisa, but they were both young and desperate and being married meant they could conjoin their incomes when applying for apartments.
It was too soon to move from Toronto to Ottawa. He and Lisa had only just begun to grieve the latest of many miscarriages over their almost twenty year marriage; how had he expected her to cope with having to move away from her family and friends and support system there?
So, Wyatt hopes it’s not too late. Because he’s teetering on the edge of his mid-thirties, an inevitable death sentence for any professional athlete, and newly divorced with no family and barely any friends.
Well, not barely any.
He gets along well with the entire team. Even his captain, Ilya Rozanov, whose personality sometimes leaves much to be desired. Thankfully, he’s seemed to soften and open up considerably now that his husband, Shane Hollander, has joined their roster.
He gets along with Bood and with Evan Dykstra and Tanner Dillion, but being the goalie can be lonely. When the other guys play, they play together; they share the goals and they take mutual accountability for losses. Whether or not a puck gets through their net is only Wyatt’s responsibility.
Surprisingly, the team mate he gets alone with most is their youngest: Luca Haas. Wyatt would describe him as if you took a puppy and a mouse and somehow make their offspring almost six feet tall.
He’s shy and sweet and wide eyed innocent, which Wyatt enjoys most about him. Talking with Luca is like a constant reminder that there are pockets of the world still filled with good and untouched by the uglier realities of life.
Their bond began over something as inconsequential as comics. Wyatt has always loved superheroes, DC and Marvel alike, since he was a kid. He always enjoyed the idea that he could come from something tragic and be more, while Luca enjoyed the art of it all.
He’s an amazing drawer. Unlike the other guys, who are glued to their phones or always have a beer in their hands; you’ll never find Haasy without his sketch pad.
While the offensive line fight for the puck on the other side of the rink, Wyatt chances a glance over at Luca.
He’s on the bench, his helmet off and his gravity defying brown hair sticking up all around him, with his bottom lip between his teeth. Wyatt can see the spiral spine of the sketchbook from here and he rolls his eyes.
It should be annoying; Haas should be focusing on watching his teammates practice or stretching for his turn on the line for drills but instead he’s curled up on the bench like a giant ball of hockey gear oblivious to anything else.
Wyatt snorts fondly, finally looking away and squaring his knees to get ready to defend the net against Rozanov coming down the ice. He’s able to block it, but only because Rozanov attempts to show off a slap shot but overcompensates his swing so that it flies and hits off the corner of the post. Wyatt sighs in relief.
“Ohhaw,” Rozanov groans loudly. “Was so close!”
Wyatt lifts the mask off his face to grin at his captain. “Stop trying to look cool in front of your husband.”
“It’s not working,” Hollander grunts, “It would have been much hotter if you got it in.”
Rozanov's smile is boyish, “Is what she said.”
“God,” his husband groans. “I should have never let him watch that show. Now he won’t stop saying it. He’s even got my mom doing it— stop, Ilya.”
“What?” Rozanov asks innocently. “I would never make mom joke about Yuna! Troy’s mother on the other hand…”
Wyatt laughs, shaking his blonde curls from his forehead. The look is new, something he’s decided to try out since the divorce, and he’s still getting used to all the hair in his face all the damn time.
He looks back at Luca who is getting ready to swap out for Troy Barrett, who is currently defending his mother’s honor with his captain in a headlock while Hollander cheers him on.
He doesn’t know how Luca can stand that shaggy hair getting all sweaty, but maybe he’ll ask for help picking out some products. Luca would definitely say yes to a Walmart run.
Secretly, he’s been hoping to find an excuse to get Luca alone. They usually go out in group settings or with at least one other teammate, but he’s not ready to tell everyone about his divorce yet.
He wants to start with Haasy because, honestly, and as pathetically as it sounds considering the guy is nearly 15 years younger, he’s the closest thing Wyatt has come to a best friend since he was in his twenties himself.
Luca is the perfect person to soft launch his divorce with. He won’t make good natured but poorly timed jokes like Rozanov, he won’t be awkward or uncomfortable like Hollander would be, and Wyatt doubts he’d try to set him up for a rebound like all of the other guys would.
Lisa has been Wyatt’s one and only. They’d gotten together at fourteen and shared all their firsts. Their sex life was good. There was even a time when it was great; when Wyatt started making more money as a pro and Lisa was out of med school finally and the weight of the world wasn’t crushing their libidos.
Still, the idea of going out and ‘sowing his oats’, as Lisa had disgustingly called it, didn’t appeal to him. 35 wasn’t ancient by any means but Wyatt felt too old for hookups and causality.
Haas takes his spot at Rozanov’s right shoulder, facing away from Wyatt. His neck is so pale against the red Centaurs jersey and his helmet mashes his hair against his head, with some wisps sticking out of the sides.
Wyatt laughs quietly. If you’d never seen Luca play and only saw him in his uniform, you’d think you were looking at a kid wearing his dad’s workboots. But then Luca takes off across the ice and he becomes Haasy, a player with insane game intelligence and stamina and more potential than most players have just in his pinky finger.
Luca scores easily and Wyatt smiles, watching Luca’s face glow as red as his jersey as Rozanov scruffs his neck in celebration. Even though Luca spends the entire practice in his own little world, he’s still able to easily read the plays once he’s on the ice.
Watching Haas’ face transform into a bashful smile is like watching a flower bloom. He truly has no idea how great he is or how even greater he’ll be in the future. Wyatt is more than proud and even more jealous than that.
Luca still had so much time. And for Wyatt… Well, here’s to hoping.
“I like this one,” Luca hands him a bottle with a cartoon octopus holding a plethora of hair tools in its many tentacles.
“Haasy, this is literally a children’s detangler. Look— no tears.”
“It smells good! And my hair is always knotting,” he pouts, taking the bottle back from Wyatt and putting it in their basket.
“That’s because you have so much of it.”
Luca shrugs. “Maybe I’m a bad person to help with this. Aren’t you supposed to do special things for curly hair? You should ask Rozanov.”
Luca’s accent is all in the front of his tongue, making ‘things’ sound like ‘tings’ and Wyatt resists the urge to ruffle his fluffy hair fondly.
“I would rather die,” Wyatt jokes. However, the thought of being alone in a department store with Rozanov and unlimited income does scare him quite a bit. “I’ll try the spray.”
They walk up and down the aisles, stopping periodically so that Haas can pick up a product and read the labels. Wyatt wishes he knew what he was looking for because everything ends up going back into the shelf.
It does give him time, though, to hype himself up for the inevitable conversation.
“Hey. I actually— I wanted to talk to you about, uh, something.”
Haas’ big eyes go wide, the deep brown reflecting the fluorescent overhead lighting like an actual Pixar character. “Did I do something wrong?”
“What? No. Haasy— no, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s about, um, me.”
If possible, his eyes get even wider and his turns his body to face Wyatt completely, putting both hands on the side of the cart to keep Wyatt still.
“You can’t retire. Even if we don’t get the Cup this year, we—“
Wyatt breaks into a laugh, pushing the shopping cart gently so that it nudges Luca’s belly.
“I’m not retiring! Jesus. It’s more, like, personal.”
“Oh god,” Luca gasps. “You’re sick. How bad? You can’t die. Even if we don’t get the Cup this year—“
“Luca,” Wyatt tries to turn on his authoritative, grownup voice. Though it’s probably softened considerably by his grin, which Haas returns sheepishly.
“Sorry. I should probably just let you tell me instead of assuming, right?”
Wyatt sighs. “I— well. Lisa and I are splitting up. Or. We have been split up, for a while, but we’re making it official now. Like, legally. What I’m trying to say… I’m getting a divorce.”
Wyatt distracts himself from the awkward silence by picking up a purple bottle called “Curl Talk” and pretending to read the instructions like Haas had. Seriously, it’s just hair. Shouldn’t he be able to just… throw it on after a shower and be ready to go? What are all these instructions for?
“Sorry,” Luca says in a rush of breath. “Give me one second, please. I’ll be sad with you, but only after I stop being relieved that you’re not dying or retiring.”
Wyatt puts the product back and backs up the cart so he can get around Luca, who is like a small brick wall in front of him.
“You don’t have to be sad. I’m not sad.”
“You’re not?” Luca rushes to keep up with Wyatt and the shopping cart. “But you’ve been together for almost as long as I’ve been alive.”
Wyatt rolls his eyes. The worst part is, Luca isn’t even trying to be funny. His puppy dog eyes are creased with genuine concern and his mouth is set in a worried frown.
He really is such a cute kid, Wyatt thinks. If you were appropriately aged and into men— which Wyatt is neither of. But there’s just something about Luca that gives Wyatt a sense of protectiveness and cute aggression.
Maybe it’s his mess of hair or his doe eyes or the fact that he’s a tall, muscular man with a beautifully androgynous bone structure, but Haas sets all his protective neurons on fire.
“You’re such a brat. But, no. I’m… it’s good,” saying it doesn’t sound like a lie and it doesn’t feel like one either, which Wyatt counts as a win. “We still get along well. Great, honestly, maybe even better than we did the last few years of our marriage. And, well, we were young when we got together.
“Young like you,” Wyatt teases and then sighs. “I guess it was just inevitable.”
They’re in the deodorant aisle now and Wyatt waits patiently for Luca to open and sniff all the options. Usually Wyatt just goes for the cheapest antiperspirant, but he has noticed that Luca always smells really good. Maybe in this new phase of his life he should start caring about things like that.
“Why?”
“It’s easier to grow apart, I guess. We aren’t the same people we were at 14 or 20 or even 30. That’s a lot of time to make the gap of differences wider.”
“Yeah, but…,” Luca frowns and Wyatt can’t tell if it’s from the conversation or the scent of the deodorant he just picked up. “If you love each other, it shouldn’t matter. You could be together for a hundred years and it wouldn’t matter because you make sure your new different compliments their new different.”
Wyatt stops himself again from ruffling Luca’s hair. Wyatt wouldn’t call himself cynical by any means, but he sees himself as a realist. Everything in his life has taught him that not everyone gets a happy ending, but Luca hasn’t lived reality.
Luca still talks to his mom every day on the phone, speaking to her in rapid German while Wyatt can hear his family on the other end talking over each other and eager to hear about his Canadian adventures. Wyatt hasn’t spoken to his mother in more than fifteen years.
Luca takes pictures of inconsequential things like a bird or a street sign to send to his sister. Wyatt doesn’t have siblings, or maybe he does and just doesn’t know it. That would be more realistic considering who his father was. Is— if he’s even still alive.
And Luca, bless him, believes in fairytale romance. He gushes at the sight of Hollander and Rozanov together and talks about them like they’re soulmates. As if that’s a real thing.
Wyatt knows better, but for some reason he wants Luca to keep his optimism. He shouldn’t have to grow up into a grumpy old man like Wyatt.
“That’s sweet, Haasy.”
“Shut up.”
“Seriously,” Wyatt grins. “And then they lived happily ever after.”
“Ugh,” Luca literally says the word ‘ugh’ and Wyatt laughs. “So what if I believe in happy endings?”
This time Wyatt really can’t help but to playfully muss Luca’s hair, fingers carding through the wild, thick brown locks. It’s surprisingly soft, but one of Wyatt’s fingers gets stuck in a knot that makes Luca cringe.
“Quit it,” he smacks Wyatt’s hand away. “Have you told the other guys?”
“No. It’s still… it’s not new, but we only just started the paperwork.”
Only just started is a little generous. He and Lisa have been separated for over a year and it had been three months since Wyatt had come home from an away game in New York and found Lisa waiting for him at their kitchen table with two mugs of coffee, a sad smile, and a stack of papers.
Wyatt wasn’t lying when he told Luca that he and Lisa were getting along better now than they had in at least a decade. Wyatt had thought that’s what married life was supposed to be like. His own parents had been miserable his entire life, so he just assumed that was the way it was.
But they had to be honest with themselves. They weren’t happy. They loved each other, but they didn’t like each other very much, and with the added stress of trying to grow their family it became more apparent than ever.
Wyatt would be lying if he didn’t say he was relieved they hadn’t brought a child into the mix. Would they have forced themselves to stay together in that case? Plus, he already knew what life as a child was like when your parents resented each other and that was not a cycle he wanted to continue.
“Is Lisa back in Ottawa with her family? Do you want this? It says it’s good for curly hair.”
Luca shows him a comb that looks twice the size of Wyatt’s head.
“Um, no. And no, she's staying here for now. At least until we sell the house.”
Luca puts the comb back before realizing what Wyatt had just told him. “Sell it?”
Wyatt shrugs awkwardly. “I could buy her out, but it would just feel…”
Wrong, probably. They had moved to Ottawa after Wyatt’s unexpected draft hoping that it would be a fresh start; starting with a beautiful, big house that they planned to fill with laughter and love and instead they allowed the silence to creep in from every corner and engulf them.
They both had demanding jobs, often on opposite schedules. Wyatt would return from days traveling for games to Lisa preparing for her on-call shifts at the hospital.
He always thought that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but maybe too much of it makes you forget what there is to miss in the first place.
“So where are you gonna stay?” And then quickly, his voice pitched in anxiety, “You’re not going back to Toronto..”
The thought had crossed Wyatt’s mind. They’d been in Ottawa for three years now and while Lisa had made the effort to make friends and immerse herself in the city, Wyatt didn’t really have much of anything here. His team, yes, but if he went down to the AHL Toronto would have a spot for him.
But did he want to spend the last few years of his career there? When he’s so close to being a Stanley Cup champion? Like Haas said; if not this year, then…
Still. There are too many things in Toronto that Wyatt can’t face right now. Maybe not ever. Too many people that hold the key to too many memories.
He flinches and rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I’ll probably stay in an Airbnb or something for a while until I find something more permanent.”
Luca’s face scrunches up in distaste. “I hate Airbnb. Why charge for a cleaning fee if you’re just going to make me clean? Makes no sense.”
“I agree. But… yeah. That’s what I’m working with, at least for now.”
They lapse into silence around bedding. On an endcap, amongst a nicely merchandised selection of linen sheets, an obnoxiously colored pillow sticks out.
It was obviously left behind by a parent who didn’t want to spend the ridiculous price tag for a licensed product that their kid would probably grow out of at some point, but Wyatt stares at it and the Justice League stares right back.
When he was a kid, he used to beg his mom for something just like this. But they didn’t have the money for it or it was just another thing she’d have to pack when they were inevitably evicted and by the time Wyatt was out of the house and married; he thought he was too old for something like this.
“What if you move in with me?”
Wyatt’s attention is ripped from the pillow to look at Luca next to him. His face is set in a serious expression and his chin is raised as if expecting Wyatt to call him insane.
“What? Are you insane? Haasy.”
“Why not?” He argues and Wyatt can imagine just how badly he wants to stomp his feet to emphasize his point. Brat.
“I have the extra room. And I hate living alone. I’ve already considered getting a roommate but I’m picky about sharing my space.”
Wyatt raises an eyebrow. “But you would with me?”
“Well, yeah,” Luca says, just like that. Like it’s no big deal that in just a few minutes he had thought about, considered, and then decided to invite Wyatt into his home.
It’s a little touching, honestly. Wyatt feels the warmth of being welcomed and being wanted surround him.
Luca is still listing his arguments. “I already know you pick up after yourself and your hygiene is good and— hey, if you skimp out on rent; I already know where you work.”
Wyatt turns to look at the pillow again, mostly because he thinks he’ll agree to pretty much anything when Luca turns those puppy eyes on him.
Everyone is telling him something different. Superman says to let Haas down gently because it wouldn’t be appropriate for a thirty-something year old man to move in with their college-aged teammate, while The Flash argues that this is something new and interesting and exciting: exactly the type of things Wyatt is hoping for in this new stage of his life.
Honestly, the concept is a little exciting. Wyatt didn’t go to college and he and Lisa married and moved in together very young, meaning Wyatt never experienced a real roommate or the brotherhood of sharing a living space with another guy.
Maybe he’s too old for all that. But Wyatt has spent his whole life in ‘too soon’ so maybe he should try out ‘too late’ for a change.
“Alright,” he concedes and chuckles as Luca tries to stifle his excited gasp. “It’ll only be for a little while, though. Just until I get my own place.”
“Yes! I mean. Yeah. Fine. Cool. But yes! This is gonna be awesome. Oh— we should go pick out a lamp for your room.”
“A lamp?”
Luca is already walking down the aisle towards home appliances when he turns over his shoulder to look back at Wyatt with a confused expression.
“Do you hang out with the big light on? Are you a psychopath? Maybe I’m rethinking this.”
Wyatt snorts. Brat.
“Too late, that was a verbally binding contract,” he moves the cart around Luca to lead them to the lamps, but then stops.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just— I forgot something. I’ll meet you there?”
Luca gives him an odd look but nods and Wyatt watches him turn the corner and disappear before jogging back to bedding to grab the obnoxiously colored, overpriced pillow. Fuck it.