Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

F/F, M/M

Fandom:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationships:

Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow & Original female characters, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Svetlana Vetrova (mentioned), Original Female Character(s)

Additional Tags:

Scene: Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts in Episode: s01e04 Rose, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, mentioned threesomes, AI was not used in this fic

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of Not the Boston WAGs

Stats:

Published: 2026-06-30 Words: 2,446 Chapters: 1/1

Peter, Paul and Mary

Summary

In which Cliff Marlow uncovers two gay love affairs in one afternoon, is repeatedly denied a threesome, gets banished from the cuck chair, and is probably bisexual.

Not canon to the rest of the series

Notes

I love writing AUs of my AUs. I did consider Shannon/Vikki in the main fic, and decided against it. This is a look at how tuna melt day might have gone if I hadn't. Title is from 3 by Britney Spears, which I listened to today for the first time for reasons that actually are unrelated to this fic.
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Cliff's first thought is oh that's hot. It is quickly followed by what the fuck?

He has the day mostly off, a rarity in the frantic schedule of the NHL. There had been a bit of tape this morning to prep for tomorrows game against Montreal and Cliff had shown up early to work out with a few of the guys but largely the day was his own.

Being a cool dad, Cliff had briefly entertained the thought of jailbreaking one of both of his kids from school to have a fun day. Since he was also a responsible dad, he'd settled for going to the mall and doing some early Christmas shopping.

So what if it was barely November? Cliff normally did his shopping the week of. This was growth. Character development.

Shopping for Max and Emma has always been pretty easy for Cliff. His brother often teased that it was because he never really stopped being a kid himself. Cliff always shoved Glen and reminded him that they both get paid fuck tons of money to play a game for a living, and that people in straw houses shouldn't smoke cigarettes. An infinitely more interesting analogy than the glass house/rock throwing argument.

To be fair to Glen, Cliff's gift hunting strategy had always been to look around the store and think when I was their age, what would I think the coolest thing here was? Then he bought it.

He'd been a bit afraid that now that Emma was a teenager (in high school! His baby girl was in high school! So unreal) this strategy would stop being effective. What did Cliff know about being a teenage girl?

But it turned out, no matter the age or gender, some things were universally cool. And Cliff was great at finding those things.

Car full of cool shit and heart full of pride in himself, Cliff pulls out of the mall parking garage and flicks on his left blinker. Then hesitates. Changes to right.

As of the newly reworked Marlow household holiday schedule, Vikki had the kids for Christmas day itself this year. They would be in Chicago with her family, who had never approved of him. Not as a cocky seventeen year old asking Vikki to homecoming, not as a stupid eighteen year old boy who didn't think about condoms until it was too late, and certainly not as the stressed twenty six year old who took the fault for the divorce (even though, deep down, they both knew the spark between them had died years ago).

So Cliff would be celebrating Christmas without his kids. That didn't mean they couldn't have Christmas early, just the four of them. He'd have to check his calendar for a good day, and almost certainly convince Vikki that skipping a bit of school was a good idea, but they could unwrap presents in the house Cliff still thought of as their family home.

It had gone to Vikki in the divorce, with no argument from him, so it had been almost four years since he lived here. Finding the right key on his chain is easy. Emma had painted it with teal nail polish for him after he complained that he could never keep them all straight.

Middle of the school day also meant middle of the work day for his much more traditionally employed ex-wife, so Cliff lets himself into the house without fanfare or warning. His plan is to get the holiday wrapping paper out of storage, make the presents look pretty, hide them in the guest room closet since the kids never looked in there, and then dip.

What actually happens is that he freezes in the doorway and gawks like an idiot as he watches his ex-wife and his other ex-wife make out like teenagers on the sectional. "Holy shit!"

The two women startle apart. They're both dressed in their lazy day clothes—not quite pajamas, but the kind of outfit women put on when they had no intention of going out. Holey socks and old shorts and no bras. Cliff is 99% sure the shirt Vikki is wearing started out as his, and the one Shannon has on bears the logo of the pizza place where Vikki used to work.

"Cliff! What the hell are you doing here?"

"What the hell am I doing here?" Cliff lifts a bag ridden hand to gesture at them. "What the hell are you two doing on my couch?"

Vikki's eyes flash with anger. "It's not your couch anymore, asshole, and I'm allowed to do whatever I want on it."

"Including necking with my ex?" Surely there had been some line in the divorce paperwork about that. Surely.

"Making out with a friend." Shannon corrects, reaching over to grab Vikki's hand. "And if you have a problem with that then you can go fuck yourself, Clifford."

She was the only one who ever called him that. It wasn't actually his full name, but she'd thought it was funny, and that meant he did too. Eventually it had been something she only brought up when she was pissed at him. Shannon had used it a lot in the weeks leading up to him getting served.

Damn she was sexy when she was mad. That had probably dragged out their marriage a few months, how badly he always wanted to go to his knees for her when Shannon looked at him that way.

He can spot a new tattoo, past the loose neckline of probably-Vikki's shirt and wants to run his tongue over the inked collarbone. It looked like Vikki might have beaten him to it.

"Cliff!"

A snap bring him out of his daydream. "What?"

"Do we have a problem?" Vikki asks, slow and deliberate. On edge. Maybe a bit hurt? She's still holding Shannon's hand, leaning into the other woman ever so slightly. "About—this?"

For once in his life, Cliff stops to consider his answer before he gives it. "What do you mean by this?"

He'd known they were friends. Even driven by lust and on the rebound after being single for the first time in over a decade, Cliff never would have married Shannon if she couldn't get along with his kids and their mom. He'd even known she was still around, thanks to off hand mentions from Emma about girls days and Max about kitchen science experiments. In his mind, they met up for lunch every once in a blue moon and bitched about his hatred of doing laundry.

Never had he imagined the two of them in private, hair messed and lips red.

The two women exchange a glance. Finally, Shannon says, "We're uh, we're dating. I think."

Vikki nods. "Yeah. Dating. But it's very new and we haven't told— well, anyone, but especially the kids— so don't you fucking dare—"

"Hey, hey!" Cliff tries to throw up his hands, the picture of innocence, but they're full. He lets himself fully into the house to set them down, closing the front door behind him. "I'm totally an ally! I won't, like, out you. That would be rude. I'm pretty sure the team PT is a lesbian, and I never hit on her."

The same could not be said for a lot of the guys. Cliff loved them, but not into dudes was not into dudes, full stop. No amount of bad one liners was going to change that.

"Wait, wait, have you both been gay this whole time?"

In unison, they roll their eyes at him. It's kind of spooky.

"Maybe you turned us gay," Shannon suggests.

"We've both been queer the whole time," Vikki says. "We just…didn't realize it until recently. Then Shannon started going out with other women and I got a bit…envious."

Shannon turns and kisses Vikki, hand cupping Vikki's cheek comfortingly, while Vikki's hands go automatically to smooth through the choppy bleached blonde strands.

The "Woah," that slips out is entirely involuntary. The two break their kiss to glare at him.

"No. No more threesomes, and no watching either."

Damn. Shannon knew him so well.

"No more threesomes?" Vikki asks, eyes fliting between the two of them. "You said you'd never thought about being with another woman before New Years."

"It was with another guy." Shannon promises.

Cliff nods. "It's not gay to go to Paris with a bro. Especially not after the Stanley Cup." The memory doesn't do anything to cool his blood.

"Ilya?"

Vikki sounds absolutely scandalized, so Cliff shakes his head. "Kovalev. I don't think you met him, '14 was his only season with us and he plays in…Toronto now? Somewhere in Canada for sure."

"You had sex with the guy and you still call him by his last name?"

"We didn't have sex with each other! We barely even touched during it. Totally normal."

More in unison eye rolling. Had they always been like this or had sex melded their brains together? Whatever. They would never understand. He'd probably seen most of his friends naked as often as Vikki. Definitely showered more with them. Being an athlete, at this level, changed things in a way that most of the population couldn't hope to comprehend.

After a bit more bickering about the technicalities of threesomes, a few attempts from Cliff to convince them to at least let him watch a bit more, and a promise not to let anything slip to the kids until they felt more sure about how to talk to them about it, Cliff leaves. He doesn't even get to wrap the presents. The thing about your ex-wives getting with each other (unionizing?) was that you got outvoted when you argued that your present wrapping was perfectly, fine. Great, actually.

For the second time in as many hours, Cliff gets into his car and hesitates. He could return to the penthouse apartment he'd bought after separating from Shannon. The problem with that plan was that he'd finished off the Jim Beam last night.

He could swing by the liquor store on his way. Cliff wasn't famous enough that he needed to be afraid of getting caught bulk buying alcohol in the middle of the day, twenty four hours before a match against their biggest rivals. Still, he finds himself heading for Ilya's gated community on the edge of the city anyway.

Fine. Maybe he wanted to talk to someone about the weird feelings he might or might not be having about his two ex wives getting together. Roz always stocked up on the good stuff and was never judgmental about when and where people wanted to get wasted.

Cliff knew he would be around. He'd said as much after tape this morning when a bunch of the newer guys asked if he wanted to go golfing with them. Normally Ilya would have given them a big dramatic speech about how stupid golf was, but today he'd just waved them off and said he was going home, then strutted off practically whistling.

Must have gotten laid last night, Cliff had thought, missing the completely obvious alternative he's planning to get laid today.

He doesn't have a key on his ring for this house, but Cliff has helped a drunk Rozy home enough times over the years to know where his captain keeps the spare. Lost in a cloud of his own self pity and a bit of residual arousal, he lets himself in.

Once again, Cliff's first thought is oh that's hot, quickly followed by what the fuck?

Because Roz is home, and he's a bit further into his afternoon plans than Vikki had been. Cliff has a split second to take in the man in his captain's lap—toned muscle and tanned skin, dark sweatpants pulled halfway down a stellar ass, hand jerking two dicks, forehead rubbing against Roz's face—and realize that's Shane fucking Hollander, Ilya is getting off with Shane fucking Hollander before Roz spots him and flinches.

Not freezes. Actually, full body flinches, which makes Hollander freeze up and pull back. "Wha—"

When he follows Rozy's gaze, he also flinches, fully scrambling off Ilya's lap and pulling his pants up with panicked eyes.

Ilya is calmer as he tucks himself away. Stone cold in a way Cliff is unaccustomed to seeing in his lively firecracker of a best friend. When he stands up, he shifts to the side to cut off Cliff's view of Hollander. "Marlow, what are you doing here."

"I uh, I wanted to get drunk." Cliff stutters, brain rebooting. Twice in one day? What were the fucking odds? "I went Christmas shopping? And then Vikki and Shannon were at the brownstone and I saw them on the couch, kissing—"

"They what?" Hollander's shock is, well, shocking. The Canadian reaches forward to plant a hand on Ilya's hip and uses it to lean around his Russian shield. "Shannon and Vikki? You're sure it was them?"

"Yes, I'm fucking sure, Hollander. I was married to them both. How do you even know—" Cliff glances between the two of them. "Roz, you didn't—"

"Hollander is way too skittish to go to Paris with me and one of your exes, Marly. Plus, I only do that when you talk me into tequila." Ilya snaps. Then he looks at Hollander, eyes narrowed and something like jealousy in his voice. "You do not care about WAG gossip, Hollander, how do you know them?"

"Long story." Hollander's face goes dark. "Ask Svetlana. Wait, what do you mean Paris, isn't that—"

Now that is jealously for sure.

"Ha! You called him Hollander twice, and he was just jerking you off. I told them it wasn't weird. That's just hockey."

"Did you hook up with your assistant captain, Rozanov what the fuck—"

Roz drops his face in his hands and mutters something bitter in Russian, then raises his voice to be heard past the overlapping vindication/outrage. "Marley, go get the alcohol. We will need it, I think. Hollander put your—my—some kind of shirt on. Pervert Marlow does not need to see your pretty tits. Then tell me what Svetlana has done now."

Cliff, accustomed to following Ilya's orders even when vodka isn't involved, pauses on his way to the kitchen to say, "I won't tell anyone about this, I promise. I'm an ally, love is love, and all that. Fuck what the rest of the League would say if they knew, I think you two together makes so much sense. It's almost unfair to put so much pretty in one place—"

"Marley, Hollander and I are not going to have a threesome with you either, now go."

"Yes cap."