Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble & Ilya Rozanov, Brad Hammersmith/Sebbin

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Connors (Heated Rivalry), Ryan Carmichael, Brad Hammersmith, Victor St. Simon, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Sebbin (Heated Rivalry), Shane Hollander, Troy Barrett, Wyatt Hayes, Evan Dykstra, Nick Chouinard, Luca Haas

Additional Tags:

POV Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, No Smut, No Angst, Relationship Reveal, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov is Obsessed With Shane Hollander, Married Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Post-Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Post-Canon, No Beta We Live like Ilya, Humor, The Boston Bears Share One Brain Cell, Shane Hollander Has A Bedtime, Idiots in Love, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, Dumb Hockey Boys

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of Just Game Changer things that my brain needs to write, Part 2 of Chronicles of the Boston bar with the sticky tables, Part 2 of Hammer/Sebbin is my close personal headcanon

Collections:

*Heated rivalry melts my heart*, RainyBugs_Hollanov_Yay!

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-04 Completed: 2026-03-07 Words: 5,538 Chapters: 2/2

Ilya ‘My husband Shane Hollander’ Rozanov

Summary

The Boston Bears find out that Ilya Rozanov is extremely obnoxious about being married.

or, Ilya Rozanov is forced to remember that his former Stanley Cup winning roster was made up of dumb hockey players.

POV Cliff Marlow because I think he's hot.

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

I was talking to a friend last night, and they're so in love with their partner that they kept saying my husband every other sentence, and I thought Ilya would totally be this person, and the Bears would enjoy this side of him, because they already know how obnoxious he is, and here we are. Enjoy!

P.S. I'm partial to the Bears over the Raiders, but I did borrow player names (other than Marlow, my love) from the show, so best of both worlds?

Cliff Marlow was stupidly fond of Ilya Rozanov.

Which was why, when Roz had texted him to pick a place to meet the night before game day with the Centaurs, Marlow had gathered a few of the original Cup-winning roster who had stayed with the Bears, and figured this bar would be just the right mix of cheap lighting, hockey reruns on terrible TVs, and a bartender who had long ago stopped asking questions, so they could reasonably assume there wouldn’t be many fans interrupting them.

The bar was the kind of dim, sticky place the Boston Bears used to somehow end up at the end of a rowdy night, almost a lifetime ago, when they were young and very, very stupid. Now they were here at the beginning of the night, and Marlow kept his hands off the sticky table because why the fuck was it sticky? Connors leaned forward, hands landing on a patch of something Marlow didn’t think was hygienic, and looked around at the others. Marlow made a mental note not to shake hands with Connors at the end of the night.

“I thought we were meeting Hollander tonight.” Connors was the only one of them who hadn’t been able to make it to the wedding, short notice that it had been.

Marlow peered sideways at Roz, who sat slouched comfortably in his chair, one arm hooked over the back, lazily nursing a beer. Around the table were other Bears who loved to reminisce about the good times—Hammersmith, Carmichael, St. Simon, Sebbin, and Connors, who was waiting on an answer from Roz. “Why didn’t you bring him?”

Six heads turned to Roz, but he only shrugged and took a slow sip of his beer, “My husband sleeps early before game day, but you’ll see him for drinks tomorrow.”

There was a pause, and Hammersmith blinked rapidly. Marlow made a mental note to ask him if he was having a problem with his eyes. They had been on the same line since Roz had been their centre, and Marlow worried about Hammer in his old age. The man was already thirty-five.

“It’s nine thirty,” Hammer said finally, and his blinking seemed to stop. At least Marlow wouldn’t have to drive him to the doctor.

“So?” How did Roz manage to say that one word like he was daring them to comment?

Sebbin, the idiot that he was, took the bait and asked in his usual confused voice, which wasn’t much different from his normal voice anyway. “So Hollander just went to bed?”

Roz nodded. “My husband has ten pm bedtime before games.”

Sebbin, still a fucking idiot who apparently wanted another tooth knocked out, barked out a laugh. “A fucking bedtime?”

“Very strict,” Roz said gravely, contradicting the wide grin on his face, “Very boring husband.”

“So let me get this straight,” Connors said, continuing the stupid discussion when they could be drinking their ass off instead, “Your husband ditched drinks with us so he could go to bed at ten?”

Their former captain lifted one shoulder and smirked. “He kissed me goodnight and told me not to stay out too late?”

The group erupted in guffaws, and Marlow snorted into his beer, even as he slung an arm around Roz, forgetting his own sense of self-preservation. “No, he didn’t.”

“My husband Shane Hollander did.” Roz had a gleeful smirk on his face and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the conversation.

Carmichael leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “Who the fuck are you, Roz?” Carmy was right about that.

“And then he said to drink water,” Roz continued, extracting a bottle from somewhere in his pockets, “my husband Shane Hollander loves hydration.”

“Jesus Christ,” Hammer muttered, his forehead thunking on the table, almost sloshing the surface with all their beers. Marlow made a mental note about not getting anywhere near Hammersmith’s face either.

Victor “Viggy” St.Simon, who’d been quiet for so long, and to be fair, quiet since he joined the team before Marlow had, squinted at Roz and stated, “You’ve called him your husband like five times already.”

Marlow shook Roz with the arm he had around him, and the blond shrugged, unrepentant, his smirk stuck on his face. “I waited long time to call Hollander my husband.”

Connors groaned at the same time as Marlow. “Oh my god, he’s one of those guys now.”

“He was also insufferable before the wedding,” Sebbin pointed out, “at least he’s only boasting about Hollander now.”

“Before wedding, I was tragic romantic,” Roz corrected, that shit-eating grin still on his face. “Now I am married man.” It was so sappy that Marlow resisted the urge to tell him his face would get stuck if he kept it that way for too long.

“That’s worse,” Carmy laughed, downing half his glass in one go like he couldn’t believe his eyes, “Can’t wait to meet the man for real.”

“What do you mean, for real? You were at my wedding, Carmy!”

Hammer shooed away Roz’s affronted shriek. “We didn’t talk to him much at the wedding, did we?” Hammer leaned forward on his elbows, most of his weight on his hands laid flat on the table, and Marlow decided he would stay away from the big guy tonight. “You know what I still don’t understand?”

“What?” Roz sighed, fiddling with his wedding ring, and Marlow barely stopped himself from asking if he needed to get back to fuck Hollander before his bedtime.

“The wedding.”

“It was wedding, what is confusing about that, Hammer?” Marlow couldn’t believe Roz had the audacity to ask that about his weird-ass wedding and act like Hammer was the crazy one. Hammer usually was the crazy one, but that wedding had been confusing as fuck for Marlow as well, and the men immediately started talking over each other.

“We were all standing the whole time—”

“You are not athlete, Carmy? You cannot stand little bit?” Marlow figured that was a valid point, but they hadn’t all been hockey players.

“And there were no chairs!” Hammer added.

Roz waved a hand dismissively at him.

Connors slapped a hand on the table as he guffawed. “There were no fucking chairs?” Why were they all touching the table? Marlow worried Viggy would be the only one helping him home at this rate.

“Who doesn’t have chairs at a wedding?” How was Sebbin always the one asking questions that would get him punched?

Marlow shook his head. “Man, Roz, I just thought Hollander would’ve insisted on chairs. He’s kind of you know.”

“Stuck up?” Sebbin offered. The fucker always had a death wish, because Marlow had neatly avoided mentioning it.

Roz stared at them. “My husband Shane Hollander is not stuck up.” When everyone collectively raised their eyebrows, he reluctantly added, pinching his forefingers together, a small smile flirting at the corner of his mouth, “Okay, okay, my husband is little particular.” Marlow thought that was an understatement, but what did he know?

“Hollander seems like a guy who likes chairs,” St.Simon finally said as the ruckus died down, and they were all curious about what happened there, because Hollander was famously an organised freak.

Roz rubbed his forehead and generally looked like he had heard this many, many times already. “Uh, it was supposed to be small backyard wedding,” he said, “very intimate.”

“Intimate?” Sebbin spoke again, determined to say the damnest things, “There were like two hundred people.” There had been more than two hundred people for sure, and Marlow couldn’t even estimate that well.

“Because I invited too many people,” answered the blond, ruffling his curls and looking down sheepishly.

Marlow decided he must have had it from Hollander afterwards and laughed at Roz. “That was your fault, huh? Did Hollander not know how many people were going to be there?”

“He knew when I told him a week before the wedding, but Yuna handled the catering, so it was okay.”

Connors laughed too, catching on to Marlow’s train of thought. “Wait, so Hollander didn’t want that many people there?”

“My husband Shane Hollander wanted tasteful little ceremony,” Roz said, the smirk returning to his face.

“And you?”

Roz spread his arms wide open, almost hitting him in the face, and Marlow was glad he hadn’t been drinking his beer. “I have many friends.”

“You invited half the hockey world,” Marlow said from behind Roz’s arm that was still blocking his face, raising his own to shove the arm back at Roz, “and you invited people on Twitter, and you invited people on Instagram.”

“People like weddings!” Roz said defensively. Marlow thought he was a fucking legend for fucking with Hollander’s planning for the wedding.

They all burst out laughing, and the second round turned into the fourth somewhere along the line.

Roz was halfway through explaining, unsuccessfully, that no, Hollander had not tried to kill him when he found out how many people Roz had invited, when Viggy leaned across the table, thankfully keeping his body off it. The man’s core strength was underrated.

Viggy was going to have talked more today than in the entire season because he said, “You know what I was thinking about, though?” This was always a dangerous sentence coming from St. Simon because he rarely ever said it.

“What?” Roz asked cautiously, seemingly having learnt his lesson from the chair discussion, but he was still relaxed in his chair, so Marlow figured he didn’t mind. Roz had always been an open kind of person, except about—

“Montreal Jane,” Viggy said, voicing the exact thought Marlow had just had, and the group immediately perked up, because they had all heard of Roz’s girl, and seen him turn red at his phone like a giddy schoolgirl, and deny any and every blush they saw on him when he spoke to her.

Connors snapped his fingers. “The mystery girl, you can tell us who she is now that you’re married.” Why hadn’t Marlow thought of that? That was a fucking great idea, was what it was.

Sebbin grinned. “You were in love with her for years before Hollander, so share with the class.” Oh, the fucking idiot, why would he bring that up when they were so close to finding out who she was?

Roz closed his eyes briefly. “You are all idiots.”

“‘Montreal Jane must be crying her heart out,’” Sebbin said dramatically, because he wasn’t born with any useful instincts, “what happened there, Rozanov? You just forgot about her when Hollander came along?”

“Yeah,” Connors said. “Did your husband know you moved to Ottawa for Jane?” Why were all his teammates on a suicide mission today?

But Roz didn’t even attempt to knock them out, and he had a good right hook from what Marlow remembered, and he hadn’t even been drinking vodka today. He just stared at them all like they were particularly stupid puppies, which they could be sometimes, but Marlow didn’t think they weren’t being that stupid today. They were barely tipsy!

“Hey!” Hammer protested when no one else did, “I don’t know about the rest of these fuckers, but it was a valid question.”

“No,” Roz said, pointing around at each of them. “Every one of you is fucking idiot. I cannot believe Pike is smarter than you.”

“What?” Hammer protested again when they all looked confused at each other, ignoring the part where Roz called them all idiots, “Why are you comparing us to Pike?” Was Pike Roz’s new best friend? Marlow didn’t think he could survive knowing that, but Marlow had been Roz’s best man at the wedding, so maybe his statement had something to do with Pike being Hollander’s best man? See, he wasn’t an idiot.

Roz leaned back in his chair and grumbled. “Who do you idiots think Montreal Jane was?”

They all looked at each other and then back at him.

“A girl from Montreal?” Marlow guessed, because it seemed like an obvious conclusion to draw.

Roz stared at Marlow, turned to stare at the others and then rubbed down his face.

“My husband Shane Hollander,” he said slowly, like he was explaining to small children, “is Montreal Jane.” Oh. Ohhhhhh, they were all fucking idiots, alright.

Silence fell over the table.

“What?” Sebbin, the fucking idiot that he was, spat out his beer on the other end from Marlow, thank god.

“You’re kidding.” Connors had eyes as big as saucers now, but Marlow was fairly sure he hadn’t taken anything that would kick in right now.

Hammer sat up straight. “Wait, Hollander is Montreal Jane?”

“Yes.” Roz gestured with his beer, like it should have been obvious. Well, Marlow thought, it should have been obvious, but none of them had put it together.

St. Simon was the only one who looked completely delighted, and the only one who didn’t add to the conversation.

Sebbin slapped the table, gathering every ick he could from the sticky surface. “You were in love with Hollander the whole time?” Fuck, Marlow supposed they were all going to say the obvious thing now.

Roz’s shark grin had taken over his face. “Yes!”

“And you called him Jane?” Hammer asked for the second time, his face all scrunched up like he was trying to read a play in the coach’s handwriting.

“It was joke!” Roz complained, “From when no one knew.”

Marlow felt the need to point out the obvious. “But no one knew until a few months ago.”

“Exactly!”

“Fuck!” Connors said then, because what else could he have said to calling Shane Hollander Jane of all names. Fuck!

Roz pointed at him. “My husband Shane Hollander thought it was very charming.”

“Of course he did,” Carmy muttered. The man looked like he would have a stroke in a minute, and he was almost as old as Hammer, so maybe it was a possibility.

It was true that Hollander had looked at Roz like the sun shone out of his ass at the wedding, but Marlow doubted Hollander thought it was charming because he seemed to enjoy calling Roz an asshole every chance he got. He leaned back, laughing. “But will Holly say the same thing?”

Roz’s grin really was going to split his face in half. “My husband—”

“Please stop saying my husband every time we talk about Hollander,” Sebbin begged, “We know you’re married.”

Roz took another sip of beer. “Nope.”

Chapter End Notes

I've said it before, and I'll say it again about Cliff Marlow on the show, oof 🔥 In the words of our king, Hayden Pike, I'd hit that. My type is big and smart, so basically David Hollander, but in a pinch, I will make it work with big and dumb, aka Cliff Marlow. The long, big, game night fic with David Hollander and co is cooking, so are the chapters for my other unfinished works, but meanwhile, this is one of the many fic ideas scribbled into a post-it (or 10) that wouldn't quit my brain until I wrote it.

I knowwwww you have questions about the sticky table, but I don't know where it came from, just that it stuck (get it?), and Shane will have to get it cleaned before he sits with them, haha.

I guess the next chapter would be Shane meeting the Bears after their game the next night, so until then :) Would love to know what you thought of the fic, comments are always welcome, mwah mwah!

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

The Boston Bears meet the very pretty Shane Hollander.

Chapter Notes

Hello to all of you fellow Marlow lovers, and thank you so much for reading! This has gotten more kudos and comments than I expected for something so self-indulgent, so this update is for you as much as it was for me.
I normally tighten my writing and don't let my sentences get away from me quite as much, but Marlow felt like a perfect POV for all those pesky wandering thoughts, so I felt like a fucking genius when I finished this and am posting this before editing much (do point it out if you spot any errors, and I'll fix them). Hope it lives up to your expectations.
Enjoy!

Marlow’s mom always had to remind him to breathe because he got so caught up in extreme emotions that he forgot. Roz had taken over for her when Marlow joined the NHL, his voice saying ‘Breathe, Marly’ still carrying over for him when he needed it, but his mom had gotten right back on the train since Roz had left. He felt an overwhelming urge to call her now as the six of them stood outside the visitors’ locker room after the Bears’ game against the Centaurs.

This was such a terrible idea, and Marlow felt sure someone was going to lose a tooth.

Connors couldn’t wait any longer to meet Hollander in person, so Carmy and Hammer had volunteered to introduce him, like they hadn’t all met him, but also weird because they had all only met him a time or two. Marlow had reluctantly offered to come along, and Viggy had joined them because he didn’t want to miss the show, whatever that meant.

What it ended up meaning was the six of them fidgeting in front of the visitors’ locker room, waiting for Roz and Hollander to come out, but come out like exiting the room, since they had already come out in a rather spectacular fashion.

“How long do all these Centaurs take to shower? Not a single one of them is out yet.” Sebbin asked, leaning heavily against Hammer, claiming he was too hungry to have the energy to stand on his own two feet. He had tagged along too because he didn’t have anywhere else to be, and Marlow hoped the fucker didn’t have a death wish for tonight because he was about to have a world of opportunity.

Viggy leaned against the wall with his arms folded, enormous and patient in a way that suggested he was not leaving until he got what he wanted, and sighed for what felt like the hundredth time tonight. “It means you should shower a little longer, Seb.”

Marlow and Carmy sniggered, and Hammer patted the pouting man’s head on his shoulder.

“This is stupid,” Sebbin muttered.

“You’re stupid,” Connors replied automatically.

Marlow opened his mouth to say something totally reasonable about how this entire situation was embarrassing for grown men when Connors let out a low whistle, and the visitors’ dressing room door opened.

Rozanov walked out first, dragging out one of his rookies who had scored a goal tonight and looked like he was just out of middle school with an arm around the boy’s neck.

“Marly! Have you met Luca Haas?” Roz beamed when he spotted them, “He used to have poster of me above his bed.”

“Stop embarrassing Haasy!” Barrett cuffed Roz as the rookie groaned and mumbled hi, but he abruptly stopped when he walked around the pair and spotted the Bears.

Shane Hollander stepped out after Barrett.

Marlow had obviously seen Hollander plenty of times on the ice, and so had everyone else. He’d also seen the man off the ice at All Stars and at their wedding, but he looked different now. Marlow thought Hollander looked smaller, but it could just be because the Bears were all wide and massive. His dark hair was also slightly messy, like he’d just run his hands through it after a shower, and his sleeves were shoved up. Marlow figured it was because they had never seen him without all the grooming he clearly did before appearances. Hollander also stopped on the other side of Roz when he saw the cluster of Bears players waiting.

Roz let go of the boy and tugged Hollander closer with an arm around his waist, and the man grumbled but let himself be pulled closer to Roz, and as a result, closer to the Bears.

Before the conversation could go any further, all six of the Bears leaned forward at the same time. Hollander blinked and took a hasty step back, directly into Roz.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Connors made a loud inhale as Hollander breathed the question. Hammer also leaned in like a curious bear, and when Seb fell off Hammer’s shoulder, Sebbin cursed, walked super close to the couple and leaned into their space, sniffing.

Marlow thought he had been the most subtle because he hadn’t gotten that close to Hollander, so he saw Hollander turn slightly, clearly alarmed, and both Barrett and the rookie moved close enough to defend their teammates. Good, Marlow thought, at least they know how to protect their own.

“Roz was raving last night that you smell good,” Carmy explained helpfully, “so we wanted to smell you.”

“You do smell good,” Hammer confirmed matter-of-factly, “Like the ocean.”

Viggy had apparently joined the experiment too, sniffing delicately over Marlow’s shoulder, like it hadn’t been his idea. “I think it’s seaweed.”

Hollander froze and whirled toward Roz, who was visibly trying not to laugh. “My pretty husband smells very nice, so what?”

“Fuck off,” Hollander snapped, “I’m not pretty.”

Sebbin tilted his head and peered at Hollander like the scientist he definitely wasn’t, still uncomfortably close. “I mean,” he said thoughtfully, “you are pretty, Hollander.” The fucker never knew when to quit, but he was right. Hollander was so very pretty, and Marlow was pretty sure they were all nodding, even Barrett and the rookie, though they didn’t have the guts, or stupidity, to say it out loud.

Hollander, however, looked like he might commit a homicide, and suddenly Marlow understood why Roz had been blubbering about kittens the night before.

“Oh,” he said, gesturing to Hollander’s face, which certainly looked like the face of an extremely offended cat, and turned to look at Viggy, “I see what he meant about the angry kitten.”

Connors agreed from his other side, “Exactly like that meme.”

“Ilya! Stop telling people I look like the angry kitten,” Hollander hissed, exactly like the angry kitten he was claiming not to be. Marlow didn’t see how that was insulting, because everyone liked kittens, and what could be insulting about being that cute?

“Wait, who’s Ilya?” Hammer took the cake for the biggest idiot alive, because what was that question?

Barrett made a strangled noise behind the couple, and Marlow rubbed a hand over his face when Sebbin looked just as confused as Hammer. They were both fucking awesome at hockey, and Sebbin could make a mean BBQ, and Hammer knew more about aliens than anyone should know about aliens, but last night must have scrambled their brains, because what?

“Ilya Rozanov,” Marlow finally offered, when no one else seemed to want to answer, “the captain we won a Cup under?”

“Huh, never called you by your first name, Roz.” Seb frowned thoughtfully at Connors, “What’s your first name then, never heard nothing about yours, did we?”

Marlow pinched the bridge of his nose when Connors answered, “It’s Connor.”

It was Marlow’s turn to frown. “Your name is Connor Connors?”

“No wonder we didn’t give you a nickname,” Roz added when Connors groaned, “that name is bad enough.”

𓅢

Half an hour later, they were at the same bar as the night before, another table pushed to join the first so the Centaurs could also fit next to the Bears. The rest of their rookies had rescued Haas from Roz, but Hayes, Chouniard and Dykstra had joined Barrett when he told them the Bears had been sniffing Hollander. At least Marlow assumed that’s what Barrett had told them, or maybe he’d mentioned Hollander being called pretty, but either way, they seemed to have assumed, and correctly, that there would be entertainment if they joined the group for drinks.

“What happened here?” Hollander said in horror when he saw the table, “Move.”

Roz and maybe Dykstra, because Marlow couldn’t tell him apart from Chouniard, shuffled out of Hollander’s way when he grabbed a stack of napkins and started scrubbing the table. Dykstra was wearing the camo hat that Roz always complained about, and looked like he ran survival camps.

The table looked the same to Marlow as the night before, which was to say it was faintly sticky in a way that suggested there had been an attempt to wipe it down by someone who had given up halfway through the job.

Marlow watched Roz watch Hollander for a moment as he scrubbed, and he looked so deeply charmed that Marlow was charmed. “My pretty husband is so responsible.”

“Shut up and help, Ilya!”

Carmy must’ve had the same thought as Marlow. “You are so gross, Roz.”

“Disgusting,” agreed Marlow, not noticing Shane stiffening, “I’m so jealous.”

Sebbin leaned toward Hayes, and Marlow remembered they had both been in Toronto for a season together before Sebbin had been traded back to Boston. “Are they always like this?”

“Worse,” Hayes grinned so wide that Marlow assumed the team didn’t care much for PDA but also didn’t mind. Hollander must have made rules or something that Roz reluctantly followed. Marlow made a mental note to ask Roz later.

“Oh,” Hammer said suddenly, “I see what you mean about angry kitten.” He did seem to have a better sense of self-preservation than Sebbin after that statement because soon after, Hollander pointed a napkin at him, and Sebbin picked up a stack of tissues to help clean the table, as did everyone else.

𓅢

Roz was in the middle of justifying his wedding invites again when Chouniard interrupted him.

“Roz, come on!”

“Oh,” Roz said softly, interrupting his rant when he spotted Hollander returning after ordering them all another round of drinks, smugly pleased in a way that would make most people want to punch his face in, “my pretty husband is back.”

“Fuck off,” said Hollander, like it was an automatic response, and it probably was, because his expression didn’t change. The Bears, on the other hand, cheered and took a sip. Hollander hadn’t figured out yet that they had made a deal to drink each time Roz said husband or Hollander, synonymous as they seemed to be, and were well on their way to drunk, but Roz, the bastard, had figured it out and drank with them every time he said it, and way more than he would have otherwise.

“What invitations?” Chouniard continued the conversation determinedly. He was a defender, and Marlow vaguely remembered meeting the man at the wedding, but he might have confused him with Dykstra.

Hollander dropped back into his chair, and Roz rested his chin lightly on his husband’s shoulder, pressing a kiss sideways to Hollander’s cheek. Marlow was just glad Roz hadn’t tugged Hollander into his lap yet, because Marlow was sitting quite close to Roz, and he didn’t think he wanted a bit of Hollander’s ass in his lap tonight, as nice as it was.

“Yeah, what invitations?” Hammer echoed, “You texted us.” Roz had sent out invitations after the terrible text, but maybe Hammer hadn’t checked his mail. The man let it all pile up until Sebbin went through it, which was the same as not looking at it at all in Marlow’s opinion.

“That’s not really an invitation,” said Carmy, pointing at Roz. Didn’t any of them check their mail? Carmy and Hammer had been on the same flight as Marlow and had followed him to the wedding, so it was likely they had never even wondered about invitations.

“It literally said,” Connors recited, pulling out his phone, “Come to wedding. It will be fun.”

“That is invitation,” Ilya said defensively, when Hollander made a strangled sound.

“Hammer got one, but I didn’t,” Sebbin unnecessarily added. The fucker had sorted through Hammer’s mail, but not his own? The more you know about Sebbin, thought Marlow.

“I did?”

“All of you got invitations,” Hollander said irritably, “Even you, Nick. Selena probably saw it, which is how you were at the fucking wedding.” Who was Nick? Right, Chouniard. Marlow had confirmed it under his breath with Roz that Chouniard was the one not in the cap.

Roz looked as surprised as Hammer. “They did?”

“You thought they were all invited by text?” Hollander asked in a snide tone.

Marlow laughed at Roz, who shrugged at his husband. Roz had the skill to get him mad down pat, because Hollander looked incredulous, his big eyes made bigger by his goggling at Roz.

Hayes and Barrett were doing what Marlow could only politely call giggling, and they hadn’t contributed much to the conversation, other than hiding amused smiles behind their hands the whole time.

Meanwhile, Viggy had retrieved what looked like the actual wedding invitation from his backpack and shot a little evil smile at Marlow when he made a suspicious sound at St.Simon. “Thought we might need it tonight.”

Roz looked around the table, and his jaw dropped when Marlow, Viggy, Barrett, Hayes and Dykstra all nodded at him. “How did you know their addresses?”

“I asked St.Simon for the Bears’ addresses because you said he was the most responsible,” Hollander said, ignoring Marlow’s offended noises and Hayes’ loud giggling, “Harris gave me the addresses for the Centaurs.”

“Did you RSVP for all of us?” Marlow pointed his finger in Viggy’s face.

“What, like any of you were going to?” Viggy shrugged, unrepentant, “I told Hollander we were all coming, and it’s not like they had menu options.”

Marlow was sure Viggy was living for this drama because he was leaning over the table towards Hollander, as excited as they had ever seen him. “And the other hockey players?”

Roz stared at Hollander like he hung the moon in the sky, but his husband only looked more annoyed at how surprised Roz seemed to be, and more by the minute. “I asked them?” he shrugged casually, “When Roz mentioned who he invited, I texted them. Wyatt knows most people, or if he didn’t, Hayd or JJ did, so it wasn’t too hard to get their numbers.”

“And the Twitter people?”

“What Twitter people?” Shane glared at Roz, who only grinned at his husband. “I only sent invitations to the people Ilya mentioned to me.”

“I texted some people date and address,” Roz sheepishly told Hollander, who rubbed at his eyes harder than he probably should.

Hollander leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes again. “You’re all idiots.”

“Roz said that too.” Hammer looked delighted as he said this. Marlow thought someone needed to muzzle Hammer. And Sebbin, and maybe even Connors and Carmy.

Shane sighed.

Hayes finally broke the silence. “This explains so much about you, Roz.”

“So much,” agreed Dykstra, and Marlow decided he would start telling Dykstra and Chouniard apart by whichever of them said the stupidest thing.

𓅢

“My pretty husband Shane Hollander!” Roz announced, many empty glasses and bowls of peanuts later, when he turned around and saw Hollander, who had been sitting in the same place since the beginning of the night, loud enough that the table next to them turned to see.

“Hello to you,” Hollander said dryly, but his tone belied the softness in his face as he leaned in for the nicest kiss Marlow had ever seen Roz give anyone.

Hollander looked glowy, and Marlow wondered if he and Roz had disappeared to the bathroom earlier, but he wasn’t going to mention it like a gentleman, or what he thought gentlemen were like anyway.

Hammer had no such qualms. “Did you just get fucked, Hollander?” The fucker did have a death wish, and Marlow should maybe become one of those people who could predict things because he had foreseen this at the start of the night.

Hollander spluttered like someone who had just heard about sex for the first time, and Marlow would have believed him if he weren’t married to Roz. He wondered how a man married to Roz could still be so shy, but Roz had always liked the type. His type had been shy and sexy and freckle-y, so exactly Hollander, which meant Roz had always been obvious, and they just hadn’t connected the dots.

Hollander was still spluttering, but that didn’t stop Sebbin because he snorted at Hammer. “They went off for a handy half an hour ago, you just didn’t notice because you were too busy discussing aliens with Hayes.”

Connors seemed just as confused as Marlow about Hollander’s reddening face. “How can you be married to Roz and still blush at this?”

Roz slipped an arm around his husband, who looked the reddest shade of red Marlow had ever seen on a dude. “My pretty pretty husband—”

Oh well, thought Marlow, turns out Hollander could get redder. “Shut up.”

“—spent too many of his prime years talking to responsible Pike with a million kids—”

“Fuck off, you love his kids.” Hollander did sound as cute as a kitten saying it, and Marlow could see why Roz made sure to have it said to him as often as humanly possible.

“—and fucking me—”

“Ilya!” Hollander looked like he was regretting that part of his prime years.

“—just not enough whimsy.”

“Stop saying whimsy,” something occurred to Hollander then, because he stiffened in Roz’s grip and turned a glare on the Bears, “Which one of you fuckers taught him whimsy?”

“Why would you think it was us?” Connors was valid about asking that question, because Hollander sounded too sure.

“I know it was one of you,” Hollander sounded absolutely sure when he replied, “because he started saying it at the end of 2014, or early 2015, the year after your Cup win.”

Marlow knew it was Carmy because they had all started saying whimsy around the same time. One of Carmy’s girlfriends had broken up with him after telling him he didn’t have enough whimsy, and they had teased him about it for so long that they started to use it non-ironically. It had stuck, but Marlow was still surprised when Carmy raised his hand like he was in class with a strict teacher and admitted to it.

“It was me.”

Connors gasped like he didn’t know who it had been, even though he had been the one to wheedle it out of Carmy in the first place. “Our whimsical king!”

Roz turned to Hollander with a radiant smile. “My whimsical, beautiful husband—”

Six Bears lifted their drinks in unison, and Hollander buried his face in his hands. “What are you doing?”

“Drinking every time Roz says my husband,” Hammer said absently, gulping his beer. Barrett and Dykstra laughed so hard they nearly toppled their chairs.

Roz pinched Hollander’s cheeks and was drunk enough to tug him into his lap. “Just look at my pretty husband!”

When the Bears lifted their drinks again, the Centaurs joined them. Hollander sighed and didn’t bother protesting as he melted into Roz, snuggling as if the chair could somehow fit two professional hockey players.

“I hate all of you.”

Chapter End Notes

Hear me out, okay? Sebbin and Hammer are together, but they don't know they are until Shane points it out to them. What do you mean you live together, occasionally sleep together, and file taxes together, and one of you handles all your mail, and you spend the holidays alternating between your parents? It means you're fucking together. Ilya, why didn't you say? Marlow thinks it's because it's obvious, and Hammer's mother clutches her metaphorical pearls when she finds out they're not actually together, because she's been introducing Sebbin as her son-in-law, and Sebbin thought it was a joke, going along with her to book clubs with her friends to be fussed over, and calling her when he wants her to make cookies. Yuna and Hammer's mother and Sebbin's mother love talking about how they have two hockey players in the family, when most people only have one. Anyway, it's growing on me, you know?
Edit: Hammer/Sebbin is my close personal headcanon

My writing has no rhyme or rhythm for the most part, and I write what I write, so my updates are haphazard even if I try hard, and I'm always just happy when I can write, and the train has no signs of stopping, so onward and upward we go.

I've started so many fics, but this is the first non-oneshot I've finished, so send a yayyy my way, and follow this series for more HR fics! I love all of your comments and would love to know what you think!