Chapter Text
★ ★ ★
Cliff Marleau gets traded to Montreal in the middle of the 2015-2016 season.
The day the trade was announced was like any other day a trade gets announced, except Ilya’s never felt like this about a trade before.
Cliff has mixed feelings about it and each of those feelings is turned to 11. Of all of the older guys on the team, he’s the one with the least amount of roots laid down in Boston. As far as teams go, Montreal is just as competitive as Boston. Both teams have generational talents as captains. He even speaks a bit of French already.
On paper, everything’s fine. But then he locks eyes with Rozanov in the locker room while he’s packing up his things.
Ilya’s emotions keep oscillating between the grief swirling in his chest of losing his best friend on the team to the sheer panic and odd jealousy of Cliff leaving to play with Shane. To live in the same city as Shane. How much has he told Shane about Cliff? Will Shane slip? Say something he shouldn’t know about Cliff? God, they need to talk about this.
“Roz.” There’s a level of acceptance in Cliff’s voice that Ilya can’t believe he’s reached already.
“Marly.” Ilya responds, lips twitching into a frown.
Cliff laughs, “Wow, you’re a softy.”
“Am not,” Ilya protests pointlessly.
With a disbelieving shake of his head, Cliff continues packing. “You’re gonna miss me.”
It’s not a question and Ilya doesn’t need to say anything for Cliff to know the answer. “You can’t let Hollander replace me as your best friend. I hear he is boring. Never goes out after games.”
Cliff puts his bag down and grips Ilya’s shoulder tightly, looking him directly in the eye in a way Ilya has to force himself not to shirk away from. “He won’t, brother.”
It’s not the first time Cliff’s called him brother, but it feels different this time.
Ilya repeats the word back to him in Russian, “Brother.”
Cliff nods and they wrap each other in a tight, quick embrace.
And then Cliff’s gone.
★ ★ ★
“Hey?” Shane answers the phone, sounding distracted and confused as he gets into his car after practice.
“You can’t let Marly know we’re friends.” Ilya says immediately.
Shane doesn’t start driving. He just sits in the car in the parking lot, baffled. “How would he know that we’re– wait, really? You’re describing us as friends right now?”
Ilya waves his hand expressively even though he’s actively speeding on the highway. “That we know each other. Whatever.”
It always takes Shane a second to respond to stuff like this. “Okay. I guess you have told me a lot of stories about him.”
That’s been a new development – being together outside of a bed long enough to actually tell each other stories.
They haven’t talked about the fact that they’ve been talking more, but it’s some form of progress.
In a weird way, Shane feels like they’re becoming friends. It’s out of order, since it used to just be sex and now he finds himself texting things to Ilya the same way he would text things to Hayden or J.J. The main difference being his massive crush on Ilya, but there are times when he forgets this is supposed to be a casual hookup and he finds himself wanting to just… talk.
Ilya curses under his breath and Shane realizes it’s road rage but before he can insist Ilya be careful, he’s rambling. “You have to be nice to him. I hear so many stories about how terrible Captain Hollander is to team. So harsh. But Marly is good guy, good player. Great wing. He will play well with you when your coach can get his head out of his ass and realize Marly should be on your line. You will score a lot of goals with him. Not against me, I know you both too well. So you have to make sure they give him a fair chance. Montreal can be stupid, you know this. Make them see him.”
Shane’s stunned into silence. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Ilya say this many words in a row before. “You’re close with him.” It’s an obvious deduction, but Shane has never witnessed this before: what it looks like for Ilya to care about someone.
Ilya sighs harshly. “Yes. He’s my best friend.”
Silence again.
Ilya makes an annoyed sound. “Don’t be weird, Hollander. You have Pike. Is it so wrong I have Marly? You’re allowed to have best friend and I’m not?”
“I didn’t say that!” Shane protests but yeah, maybe he was thinking some version of that. “You’re the one who always acts like you don’t care. Sorry it’s taking me a second to adjust to what it sounds like when you give a shit.”
Ilya’s the one to go silent at that. He tsks. “Yes, I give a shit about Marleau. If it was anywhere else… I wouldn’t be able to call and threaten his new captain. But it’s you.”
Shane breathes that in. There’s something complex in that sentence that he can’t even begin to unpack. But it’s you.
“I’ll take care of him, Rozanov. You have my word. I look out for my team.”
Ilya sighs softly. “I know you do, Hollander.” His voice is different now. The jig is up. He hesitates but forces the words out of his mouth. “I’m glad it’s you.”
Shane doesn’t even consider teasing him for this. It’s too serious in a way Ilya’s never been before. “I’m sorry you’re losing him.”
Ilya agrees, “Yes, team will suffer. They’re sending us a guy from Minnesota, three way trade. But he is not as good as Marley.”
“I don’t mean the team, Rozanov. I’m sorry your friend is moving away.”
Ilya resists the emotion. “You also mean the team.”
Shane rolls his eyes. “Fine, I also mean the team.”
There’s a moment where they could get even more sincere. Actually say the things they’re talking around.
So of course Ilya says, “We play Montreal in two weeks. If I hear Marly is settling in well, maybe I will let you suck my dick.”
Moment over. Shane pinches the bridge of his nose. “Let me. You’re an asshole, Rozanov.”
“See you in two weeks?”
“Yeah, see you.” Shane hangs up. He’s going to play on a team with Ilya’s best friend. What could possibly go wrong?
★ ★ ★
Introductions are tense. It’s not like Montreal’s never traded before, but it feels different to have a player from Boston. If it were anyone else, this would take weeks to break the ice and develop chemistry. But it’s Cliff Marleau who is apparently the most charismatic man in the league.
“Shane Hollander,” Cliff holds out his hand to his new captain as the rest of the team pretends not to be watching as they get dressed in the locker room for practice.
“Cliff Marleau.” Shane shakes his hand with as welcoming a smile as he can muster, Ilya’s threats playing quietly in the back of his mind.
Cliff smiles. “You don’t seem pissed I’m from Boston.”
Shane shrugs. “I hear you’re a great wing.”
Cliff’s brow furrows. “From who?”
It has been two seconds and Shane has already fucked up. He’s doomed. “Around. I don’t remember.”
“Hm,” Cliff lets it go. “Are you as much of a drill sergeant as people say you are?”
Shane can see why Cliff and Ilya get along and it endears him to Cliff immediately. With a huff of a laugh, Shane glances at Hayden. “I don’t know if I can answer that.”
Hayden smirks and gives his answer. “Only after preventable mistakes.”
The words are so specific, Cliff can tell the team has heard them a lot while doing drills over and over. He nods his head to Shane. “Fair enough.”
There’s a moment during practice where Shane finds himself leaning against the boards with Cliff, no one else around.
Cliff looks at him conspiratorily. “Weirdest thing happened this morning.”
Shane blinks and tears his eyes away from studying the guys doing drills and tries his best to remember how to make small talk. “Oh yeah?”
Cliff nods, also watching the drills. “Rozanov texted me before practice and told me you’re funnier than you seem.”
It’s like someone has dumped ice down Shane’s back. “What?”
Cliff laughs. “That’s what I said. What the hell are you and Rozy chirping at each other during those face offs that you impressed the king of assholes?”
Shane thinks about phone calls while driving home from practice, text messages, hands running through his hair as they lay side by side in bed. He clears his throat. “Honestly, I usually tell him to shut up.”
Cliff seems confused.
Shane realizes his mistake immediately. Cliff assumed Ilya knows about Shane’s humor from faceoffs. If it’s not from faceoffs, why would he say that?
This isn’t even Shane’s fault. Ilya’s the one who fucking texted Marleau.
Shane rushes to add, “And that his jersey is on backwards.”
He had actually said that to Ilya once during a faceoff and it caught Ilya so off guard that he actually choked on a laugh as the puck dropped.
Cliff barks out a laugh in much the same way. “That’s so stupid.”
Shane shrugs. “That’s why it was funny.”
Cliff takes a close look at Shane and smirks. “Okay, I see what he means. You’ve got that chill exterior but you’re not the hockey robot people make you out to be.”
The words make Shane bristle for a moment. He can’t control how other teams talk about him, but it’s hard to hear even if Cliff is saying he doesn’t agree with it. “Coach is calling us over.”
Cliff watches Shane snap the wall back up and can’t help feeling guilty about it.
As he lines up for a drill he gets a weird sense of deja vu. It takes the entire rest of the practice to realize what triggered it.
He glances at Shane across the locker room as they all pack up to head home and remembers his first day in the locker room with Ilya. The cold exterior, the desperate urge to impress everyone, and the soft heart buried under it all.
He picks up his phone to send off a text.
Cliff: you two have a lot in common
Ilya: who
Cliff: you and hollander
Ilya doesn’t respond.
★ ★ ★
Two weeks later, Ilya’s in Montreal and texts Shane before the game.
Lily: marly wants to get drinks after
Jane: Okay?
Lily: he’s settling well, i promised i’d let you suck my dick. but can’t sneak to your place if marly wants to get drinks
Jane: So get drinks. I won’t die without your dick
Lily: HA. yes you will. you need it. dont lie to me
Jane: This is a you problem. Either get drinks or cancel. Let me know what you decide
Another text comes in and Shane’s about to silence his phone when he realizes it’s not from Ilya.
Cliff: can i ask an insane question that you’re gonna want to say no to but let me please try to convince you to say yes
Shane cannot believe this. Did Ilya put him up to this?
Shane: Okay…
Cliff: what if we have drinks after the game
Shane: That’s not insane
Cliff: with my friend
Shane plays dumb.
Shane: Glad to hear you’ve started making friends in Montreal
Cliff: this particular friend is from boston
Shane: No
Cliff: okay i told you you were gonna want to say no but let me convince you
Shane: Ask the rest of the team, I’m not drinking with him
Cliff: …i didn’t even say who it was
Fuck. He sure didn’t.
Shane: I can guess
Cliff: okay, guess then. i haven’t talked too much about the guys from boston because i know that would provoke the montreal guys. of the people ive talked to you about, who do you think i’d actually have drinks with after leaving the team?
Shane wants to throw his phone across the room. Cliff actually hasn’t talked about Ilya at all. Which was a great survival instinct on his part. It would not have endeared him to Montreal to talk about being friends with Ilya Rozanov.
Shane: Poirier
Cliff: the goalie??? have you listened to anything i said about him?
Cliff: it was a trick question anyway, i haven’t talked about him much and i don’t think anyone else would come if i told them who it was but i think you’d be curious!!!! it would be so funny to see you two in the same room outside of a hockey rink since i’m kind of friends with both of you now. i mean i’m definitely friends with him and i like to think i have swayed you
Shane: Hayden is getting jealous which proves your point a bit. Who are you talking about?
Cliff: don’t play dumb, who would i want to see in the same room between boson and montreal
Shane: I’m not going out with him.
Cliff: we’re not going out! he’s gonna come to my place
It fractures something in Shane’s chest to hear that. Cliff can just… tell his teammate that Ilya is going to be at his house and it’s not earth shattering.
Jane: Was this your idea?
Lily: i wish it was, cliff asked me earlier and i told him there was no chance in hell you’d agree to it
Shane frowns at his phone. What’s wrong with him that reverse psychology is so effective?
Lily: come drink with us. maybe we can sneak away and suck each other off in the bathroom
Jane: ????? Sneak off??? When there are only 3 of us in HIS house????
Lily: you drive me back to hotel in your car and we do hand jobs
Jane: You’re this desperate for me?
Ilya stops responding.
Shane rolls his eyes and pockets his phone. Maybe it was a dick move but Shane’s annoyed. This is a stupid idea and Ilya knows it. But he can understand why it’s hard to resist the allure of them all being together. If this were reversed and it was, say, Hayden who was traded to Boston and had miraculously befriended Ilya, he would want them all to be in the same room together too.
Shane: I’ll go if we win
Cliff: YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO MOTIVATE ME, CAP
★ ★ ★
Shane spends the entire drive after the game trying to figure out how he and Ilya would act around each other if they really were rivals who barely saw each other off the ice.
All he can come up with is that he would be tense, so that’s easy enough to replicate.
He knocks on the door.
Ilya opens it.
They stare at each other in this brief moment of privacy.
“Hey.” Shane says softly, shoulders dropping.
“Hey,” Ilya smiles, eyes drifting down Shane’s body and back up. It’s not even lewd, it's just…
Cliff calls out from the other room. “Is one of you dead yet?”
Ilya mumbles as he lets Shane in, “He can’t see.”
Shane glances over and realizes what Ilya means. The house isn’t what you could describe as an open floor plan, so they have an opportunity for a moment to themselves once the door is closed before moving into the living room where Cliff could see them.
Shane grabs Ilya’s face and crashes their lips together, not even slipping him tongue in case it’s too loud.
Ilya’s hands find Shane’s hips and they both just stand there for a moment, chests flushed.
Then Shane yanks away.
He rubs the back of his hand across his lips. He looks at Ilya with panic in his eyes, “That was stupid.” Even though he’s the one who did it.
Ilya smiles back. “Worth it.”
Shane walks into the living room first. “Hey, Marleau.”
Ilya’s right behind him, gagging. “Hollander, how can you be his captain if you don’t call him Marly?”
Shane glares at him. “It’s been two weeks.”
Ilya grabs a beer off the kitchen counter and takes a sip. “I was calling him Marly after two days.”
“Congratulations?” Shane’s unimpressed and a little peeved that Ilya is questioning his competency as a captain, even though he knows Ilya is joking.
Ilya shoots back. “Even though it was against us, he is still a great wing. I was sad to not see him on first line.”
Cliff is watching the conversation like the Wimbeldon fucking final until the words out of Ilya’s mouth jar something in his brain, I hear you’re a great wing.
Weird coincidence.
Cliff interrupts. “Alright, maybe we should’ve asked more of the guys to come.”
Shane snorts, “They would’ve killed him.”
“And you won’t?” Ilya asks in a lilting tone, getting dangerously close to flirty.
And the thing is, Shane has been thinking about how he’d treat Ilya if they weren’t what they are. He knows this will stun Ilya but he decides to say it anyway. “I have too much respect for the only guy in the league that can keep up with me. It’d be too boring without you.”
All the energy drains out of Ilya as the words hit him. “Respect?”
Shane shoulders past him. “Don’t make me say it again, Rozanov.” He grabs a beer and pops it open.
Ilya looks at Cliff and they have matching expressions of absolute shock on their faces.
Cliff breaks the silence, “Did you say something nice to him?”
Shane shrugs, avoiding Ilya’s gaze. “I said something true.”
Cliff stammers, “I really thought I was gonna have to drag you two off each other and call you a cab or something.”
Shane can’t help the blush on his cheeks as his mind supplies him with a different reason for them to be dragged off each other. “We’d never get through the night if we didn't acknowledge that the best part of the rivalry is having a real challenge. I know you feel the same way.” Shane lets his eyes slip to Ilya just for a moment.
Ilya’s still recovering. “Yes. The challenge. You respect me? Sounds like publicity line, Hollander.”
Shane rolls his eyes. “Fuck, just take the olive branch and boot up the Xbox.”
“Olive branch?” Ilya looks to Cliff for help.
Cliff wheezes. “An offering of peace.”
Ilya tries again. “Offering?”
“I’m playing nice, Rozanov.” Shane says gruffly as he settles on the couch and grabs a controller. “Would love to see if you can do it too.”
Ilya spends the whole night trying not to just stare at Shane.
This is weird.
Ilya really thought Shane would be the one fucking this up. He thought Shane would be stumbling and saying too much or blushing. And, well, he does still blush too much. But he’s… good at this?
Ilya’s the one staring at him, dumbstruck.
The night goes by completely platonically.
Shane glances at his watch. “You have a curfew?”
Ilya shrugs. “I can be late.”
Shane takes a breath and pretends to think about it for a long time. “I’ll give you a ride back to the hotel.”
Cliff can’t believe it. “No fucking way. I can’t be an accessory to murder. You’re gonna dump him in a ditch.”
Shane glares at Cliff and says nothing.
Cliff gestures between them. “Fine! You’ve both played nice all night and I got to hang out with both my really cool friends, but it’s going to take some getting used to for you two to be… chill with each other.”
Shane goes in for the half hug with Cliff. “I won’t kill him.”
Cliff pats his back. “Yeah, yeah. I believe you.”
Ilya stands to leave and has a moment of indecision.
As much as he was distracted by whatever this act from Shane was, it was really, really fucking nice to spend time with Cliff again.
He takes long, fast strides across the room and pulls Cliff into his arms, not caring what either of them thinks about it.
Cliff hugs him back just as tightly. “I missed you too, brother.”
Ilya responds in Russian, “I missed you more, my brother.”
When they pull away, they lock eyes for a moment.
Cliff frowns. “You can go out with Poi.”
Ilya shoots him a look.
Cliff groans, “Oh, grow up. You get along with other guys on the team.”
Ilya’s eyes shift to Shane for a moment and he drops his voice as he looks back at Cliff. “They’re not you.”
“You’re a fucking softy, Roz.”
“I know. It’s terrible.” Ilya frowns as he pulls on his jacket. “I’ll see you?”
Cliff walks them to the door. “Text me when you’re in your hotel room so I can make sure I don’t have to report Hollander to the cops.”
Shane laughs it off and shoves his hands into his pockets, guiding Ilya to his car.
Once they’re in the car and the doors close, they both let out huge breaths of relief.
Shane’s entire body language changes.
It’s weird. If you had asked Ilya, he would’ve said that Shane looked nonplussed all night. He looked… calm, unbothered.
But now that Shane’s actually relaxed Ilya can tell just how tense he was. “What the fuck was that?”
Shane shoots him a look as he starts driving. “What was what?”
Ilya gestures back at the house. “You will win an Oscar?”
Shane’s brow furrows. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re an actor.”
Shane’s baffled. “You lied well too. I don’t think he noticed anything.”
Ilya cannot let this go. “No, you don’t even understand. Sure, I lied. You were… it was like I was in alter– alternate, um–”
“Universe.”
“Yes. Like I made it all up and we never actually fucked. How did you do that?”
Shane wishes he could look at Ilya’s face more closely right now but he focuses on the road. “It’s just interesting, you know? What would it be like if we didn’t actually… you know.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
Ilya watches Shane’s side profile as he drives, studying him.
Shane catches him. “What?”
Ilya shakes his head. “You are fascinating.”
“You’re an asshole,” Shane says without any weight behind it.
“I’m in a single room.” Ilya says.
Shane doesn’t need any further context to know what that means.
He parks in the back of the lot and reaches into his centre console to tug on a baseball cap.
Ilya smirks, “1142.” He heads in first, knowing that Shane will follow.
★ ★ ★
There aren’t as many close calls as Ilya expected there to be.
It’s quite the opposite actually.
Shane genuinely becomes close with Cliff and it leads to them making a group chat with the three of them. (Shane and Ilya migrate their more private chats to a different app so Cliff can’t see that on Shane’s phone the group chat includes Lily.)
The closest calls for the rest of the season were as follows:
- Ilya having a small crisis turning Cliff down for drinks in Montreal because he needed to make the most of his time fucking Shane. He made the excuse of seeing his Montreal girl which was true, in a way, but reminded Cliff that he should ask more about this girl now that he lives there.
- That one time Ilya got a little too drunk and accidentally sexted the group chat, “I wanna suck your dick so bad,” which resulted in Cliff freaking out on Ilya’s behalf to make sure Shane wasn’t homophobic or biphobic and to ignore a drunk sext that was clearly meant for someone else and it wasn’t their business to wonder who. Shane just texted Ilya back on the other app and said, “Can’t believe you’re sexing ME and I’m being questioned about being homophobic.”
The following morning Ilya reread all the text threads feeling incredibly lucky that the text hadn’t been sent to anyone else.
Ilya: how the fuck did you know i’m bi before this???
Cliff: dude, you indiscriminately check out every hot person in every bar we’ve ever been to
Ilya: hm. fair - And finally, in a hotel room during an away game, Cliff and Shane were roommates because management told them they can’t spend three consecutive nights with the same person for the sake of team building and Cliff had said, “You know, sometimes I think you never hated him.”
Shane had the audacity to say, “Who?” Cliff glared at him and Shane laughed. “I hate him on the ice. Not off it.”
Cliff pushed, “Sometimes I think you like him.”
Shane laughed that off before he could panic too much about it. “We have more in common than I would’ve expected.”
Cliff left it at that, but didn’t miss the way Shane’s eyes softened as he said it.
★ ★ ★