Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

POV Outsider, POV Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, 5+1 Things, Relationship Reveal, Humor, very much PG rated but there are mentions of, Love Bites, Lingerie, Sexting, Ilya Bragging About 'Jane', Schrodinger’s Bicurious Cliff Marleau, Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry)

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-30 Words: 4,390 Chapters: 1/1

Do They Make a Greeting Card for This?

Summary

So Jane, huh? Cliff’s mom had always called his eldest sister a ‘plain Jane’ when she didn’t want to get her hair done and ‘dress up nice’ for family shit. He didn’t think Rozanov’s Jane sounded very plain. Sure, Cliff had fucked a girl wearing his number, they all had. But apparently this chick had enough balls to not only tell Roz no, but enough clout to threaten getting him into her Montreal jersey too. He grinned as he headed to the showers. Whose number did she have? One thing he could be sure of was that it wouldn’t be fuckin’ twenty-four.

Or: Five times Cliff learns something about Montreal Jane, and one time he learns her real name.

Notes

I’ve read 800 of these kind of fics and goddamnit I’ll read 800 more.

Cliff is younger in the book yeah yeah, but I’m too attached to the concept of Daddy Marleau now to see him as anything but a couple years older. Which makes how Ilya talks shit about Scott being old even funnier imo.

1.

Cliff didn’t make a habit of reading other people’s texts. If anyone asked why, he’d say it was just plain impolite and his mom raised him better than that. Really it was because they were either straight up boring or not his business. But he didn’t need to read Roz’s texts to know his buddy had someone special on the go. He hadn’t thought much of it, the first time he’d noticed. Roz looked pleased as shit about whatever message had just pinged up on his screen, but that wasn’t anything special; probably just locked down some Brooklyn chick for the night. Same again for the next time he clocked it, down in Florida. It wasn’t until the time after that, a few days later and back in their own locker room, when he saw that same giddy smile on Roz’s face, fiddling with the chain around his neck and eyes fixed on his phone again, that he thought it might be a pattern. Dude was practically kicking his feet and giggling, for him. Cliff gave him a questioning look, but got nothing but an eye roll in return. And when he called Roz out on it at their next Voyageurs game, having put a few things together and realised the chick must be from Montreal, he got nothing but a flat evasion and some bullshit about Russians not blushing. Whatever. Cliff could be patient.

But not so patient that he wouldn’t take the chance to snoop when it naturally arose. He was just looking out for his bro, obviously. So when Roz’s phone buzzed while he was still busy doing media shit after that same Montreal game, Cliff ducked into his cubby take a look at the message previews.

Jane: Are we still on for later? You remem…
Jane: I won’t wear your jersey you assho…
Jane: Unless you wear my Voyageurs on…

Wow. So Jane, huh? Cliff’s mom had always called his eldest sister a ‘plain Jane’ when she didn’t want to get her hair done and ‘dress up nice’ for family shit. He didn’t think Rozanov’s Jane sounded very plain. But that was hardly surprising. If she was seeing Roz, and texting him regularly, despite their crazy schedule, it wasn’t exactly a shock she was a bit of a freak. Sure, Cliff had fucked a girl wearing his number, they all had. But apparently this chick had enough balls to not only tell Roz no, but enough clout to threaten getting him into her Montreal jersey too. He grinned as he headed to the showers. Whose number did she have? One thing he could be sure of was that it wouldn’t be fuckin’ twenty-four.

Still, he let Roz have his fun without prodding at him too much. Read the odd text over his shoulder to his Montreal Jane, flirty and sometimes a little more dirty than Cliff bargained for, but harmless. And yeah he’d seen Roz’s messages to pick up girls in pretty much every city they’d been to together, but they weren’t usually so… much? Just a hotel room number and a yes or a no (alright it was always a yes) maybe a line about her eyes or tits or ass that could be interchanged with any other girl. But with Jane there was a lot more back and forth, lots of messages, and longer ones too. If he didn’t know better, Cliff might have said there was a little more to it than this girl just being Roz’s Montreal booty call. Especially when Roz left his messages open one night after a shitty game in Buffalo.

Jane: Ouch.
Ilya: Wow thank you
Ilya: And everyone always says you are so nice :(
Jane: Sorry. That was a bad game. Is your shoulder okay?
Ilya: You are terrible distraction. Distract me better.
Jane: Sorry. I mean it Rozanov, how’s your shoulder?
Ilya: Stop saying you are sorry. Not your fault Buffalo are assholes
Ilya: Am getting it checked now
Jane: Good.
Jane: And be better next time. You let Buffalo’s centre check you like that? Buffalo?
Ilya: Stop being mean to me I am injured
Jane: We can talk properly later? If you want?
Ilya: Video call?? ;)

Wow, Jane had claws, damn. But Cliff knew how Roz talked to his girls – if he didn’t want to play, he wouldn’t. He’d shut it down or leave her on read, simple as. But he was batting right back at her. And more than that, it sounded like she actually cared, maybe? And Roz was letting her.

2.

They’d all seen each other banged up now and then. Either on the ice, or just dumb shit that could happen to anybody – tripping in the parking lot or wrestling with new furniture. The occasional hickey, sure. But nothing like what Roz showed up to practice with that morning. The sheer amount of hickeys he was rocking was actually a little scary. Like Cliff hadn’t seen anything like it since he first started partying, teenage shit in people’s basements where everyone drunk too much and took things maybe a little too far in the dim corners of the room. Not used to drinking or fucking, not knowing their limits with either, and ending up with the hangover from hell and a necklace of bruises. And sure, Roz had turned up to practice with odd little bruise or bite or scratch after a hook-up, they all had, jeez. And yeah they’d all chirp each other about it a little, so expected it was practically a rule, but Roz had never seemed to feel any particular way about hickeys before.

These were big and dark and all around the base of his neck, a few days old maybe, yellowing at the edges but still angry purple red at the centre. Shit. They looked genuinely painful. It explained why Roz had kept his compression shirt on for the press shit after the game instead of showing off half-dressed. Clearly wasn’t going to be shy about it in the locker room though.

“Holy shit Rozy!”

“Damn cap, what the fuck’s been chewing on you, a fucking lion?”

He was saved from being the first to say anything by Connors and St Simon, who practically ran across the locker room to get a closer look at Roz’s bitten-up neck. It was only because Cliff was watching to see what he’d do that he saw Roz’s second of hesitation before he made the decision to lean into it.

“Don’t touch, is very painful,” he said with a played-up whine, swatting at Connors where he was trying to poke the bruising. That set the others off into another round of catcalls and whistling, demands to know what chick he’d let mark him up like that.

“Your Montreal girl, Roz?” Cliff said with a raised eyebrow once the other guys had calmed the fuck down a little.

“Yes,” Roz said with a dramatic sigh, shaking his head with play-acting sadness. “My Jane is just so sexy and so great—”

Carmichael put his head in his hands. “Jesus Christ, here we go.”

“With such a pretty mouth that she just hates being left empty—”

“Man Roz, you dog!” Connors was practically fucking drooling.

“Yes, you should all be very jealous of me and my lovely Jane—”

“Yeah we get it brother,” Cliff slapped him on the shoulder. “Now quit bragging about how hot your girl is and get the damn shower. You stink.”

They all filtered out to the showers, still congratulating Roz on his freaky girl. But Cliff was starting to think this might be different. He’d clocked that hesitation. And he knew Roz could get down and dirty with the ladies; he’d seen the guy’s DMs, played Never Have I Ever one particularly messy party. But Cliff didn’t think Roz would let someone mark him up so seriously. He wasn’t really sure what that meant. But it was something to think about.

3.

Cliff had barely taken off his skates after a shit show of a home game against Montreal when Roz was halfway out the locker room door. He’d somehow speed showered and gotten half-dressed before the rest of the team had even hit the showers, hair dripping and jeans slung low. He must have had a hot date lined up to make him haul ass instead of stopping to shoot the shit and commiserate a little.

“You got somewhere to be, cap?”

“Hm?” Roz barely looked up from where he was rummaging in his bag for a shirt. His back was still wet, gold cross swung backwards and stuck to his shoulder.

“I’m guessing you’re not coming to the bar with us, huh?”

“Nope,” Roz said simply, made a noise of satisfaction as he grabbed his shirt, bent further to set his bag on the floor.

As he did so, Cliff’s eye dropped to a flash of hot pink at Roz’s waistband. He blinked in case he was seeing things, but no. That was definitely lace. He was so fucking stunned he couldn’t help but keep staring at the elastic digging into Roz’s hip. “Damn, bro.”

“Hm?” Ilya noticed him looking. “Ah. My Jane wanted to see me in her underwear.” He looked a little hot in the face over getting caught, but it wouldn’t be Roz if he didn’t brazen it out. He lifted his chin up, stuck his tongue out and snapped the elastic. “Very sexy, yes?”

“Jesus, dude.”

And alright it was a little trashy but also a little bit hot? Actually? God, Roz sure could pick ‘em. Maybe she had a girlfriend she could introduce Cliff to. Once he’d had a few seconds for all of that to sink in, Cliff’s thoughts cleared enough for one little detail to slip through. They were in Boston. So unless sending his girl a dirty selfie of him in her panties had some kind of time limit, there was no reason for Ilya to have sexy lace underwear jammed up his ass in the locker room instead of the comfort of his own home. So that must’ve meant…

“Wait, she’s in town?”

Ilya swallowed, nodded, pretended to check his phone. “She has a few days free,” he shrugged. “Wanted to see the best player in the league in action.”

“And you didn’t give her your tickets?” Cliff shook his head. “Rozanov. That’s no wait to treat a lady, bro.”

“She can get her own through her work,” he said, still feeling his way around the words a little too carefully. “Very important lady. Does not need little old me for silly game tickets.”

“You uh, you think I could meet this girl of yours sometime?” He said with a wink, gave Roz the chance to take it as a joke if he wanted to.

Instead of the flat denial or something deliberately gross to distract him that he expected, Ilya nodded. “I hope so. One day.” He lifted his shoulder in a careless little side-shrug like he didn’t care much either way. “She’d probably like to talk hockey with you.” It was… unexpectedly sincere. Damn Roz actually…liked her? Like a lot. And Cliff really didn’t know what to say to that.

“She must have a sensational ass if your dumptruck can fit in her underwear.”

4.

“…actors and athletes sure can’t keep their hands off each other…”

“…as long as he doesn’t leak spoilers for the new X-Squad movie…”

“…one hot couple…”

The TV was blasting out in the arena gym, some talk show yapping about Hollander’s thing with Rose Landry. The guy always seemed like he had a fuckin’ stick up his ass; Cliff wondered how the fuck he’d managed to lock down someone so famously easy going. They were both tens, so that part made sense at least.

“Hey, I was watching that!”

Roz didn’t reply after he shut off the TV, just glared at the blank screen for a moment before jumping down off the bike. Cliff hated to admit it, but it was sort of a relief he’d gone. Cap had been in a shitty mood the past couple weeks. After noting the lack of texts, hickeys, and bragging about his hot girlfriend in the locker room, Cliff figured he must have broken things off with Jane. Or more likely she’d broken it off – Roz was acting far too messy for it to have been his decision. They’d seen it before a couple times over the years, if something had him on edge, but… nothing like this. And yeah it sucked for him, he was obviously torn up about it, and was playing like shit. To add insult to injury, all the tabloids seemed to want to talk about was how loved up Shane Hollander and Rose Landry were. Which Roz seemed to be taking it weirdly personally, but hey, maybe having his long-time rival’s happy relationship with his super-hot famous girlfriend rubbed Roz’s own return to singlehood in his face. Which, yikes.

A couple weeks later they were in a club in Montreal, Connors having sounded the alarm that their captain wanted to get some action. Cliff had been dancing with the same girl pretty much since they’d arrived, tight black dress and legs up to there, so he’d only been checking on his captain when he remembered to do so. But it was often enough to clock Roz sticking his tongue in some chick’s ear, so. Good for him. They’d all get a break from the fucking murderous mood he’d been in since things with Jane had gone to shit.

5.

Cliff wasn’t playing in that year’s All-Stars, but ended up going along anyway. He had nothing else going on. Things had fizzled out with the girl he’d been seeing, and his sister had been pestering him to watch a game with him for ages, but their schedules never lined up. And hey, it was All-Stars! It was always kind of fun, no pressure, more booze and hook ups than hockey. It’d be nice to kick back and watch the guys instead, have a few drinks and hang out before they all had to fly out again. And it would be good catch up with his favourite sister.

By the time he got back to his room, Cliff was a little buzzed. He made himself drink a bottle of water, hearing that voice telling him he wasn’t getting any younger and the hangover was going to hit harder. He’d been talking to a very nice, accommodating lady by the pool earlier. Maybe she’d be around tomorrow.

He was embarrassingly close to just passing the fuck out on his bed when he heard a knock – the room next door maybe? – followed by a familiar voice. Oh shit right; at some point over the afternoon, he and Roz had figured out they were rooming next to each other. Roz had rolled his eyes and told Cliff to stop stalking him. So Roz had found some company huh? Lucky him. If Cliff weren’t already sunburnt and half-unconscious, with his big sister rooming on the other side of him, he might’ve been jealous. He could hear Roz talking to his lady friend, but he couldn’t pick out what they were saying, and didn’t really want to know either. Cliff supported his brother in his romantic endeavours – they’d once brought twin sisters back to their hotel room and fucked one each, grinning at each other across the room between the girls bouncing in their laps. But there was something a little sad about listening in through the wall. He’d rather Roz relayed the details of his sexploits over a pitcher of beer and game on in the background. There was some shuffling and moaning which were definitely a pre-cursor to fucking, so he mentally high-fived Roz and turned on the TV so he didn’t have to hear it.

As he did so, it registered that the other voice was also a man. Which. Huh. Between the stuff Cliff had witnessed with his own eyes alongside the stuff he’d picked up on Roz doing with Montreal Jane, it would take a lot to surprise him. And he found that Roz hooking up with a dude… didn’t? It actually made some kind of sense, once he’d sat with it for a few. But then the groaning got louder and he actively heard the other guy gasp out Ilya, and he fumbled for the remote to turn the TV louder.

He was still tipsy, half-asleep and weirdly invested in the episode of How It’s Made he’d ended up on, when he heard Roz’s boy leave. Cliff guessed it made sense he wasn’t staying. His tired head replayed every time he and Roz had locked eyes and winked or high-fived or whatever when one of them had left with a girl, when they’d looked at each other in giddy ecstasy that this was their life while they were hooking up with the twin sisters in San Fran. It was never in a checking him out way, just congratulatory – your success is mine, brother. And that still applied: Cliff wasn’t one of those homophobe guys terrified of the gays because they assume all gay dudes must want to bang them, or whatever. Fuckin’ good for Roz. Was this a first-time thing though, or had he hooked up with guys before and Cliff just hadn’t noticed? Wait. Could Jane have been a dude? It would have explained why Ilya had never flaunted her Instagram around the locker room, like he had sometimes with past hook-ups. But he didn’t think so – the whole thing had always seemed complicated enough before adding that in, too.

+1.

He’d noticed Roz messaging again before their game against Montreal. And oh Cliff knew that face. Not bothering to hide it, he peered over Roz’s shoulder to read what he was typing:

You love my fingers in your mouth…

Jesus.

“You texting Jane again, Roz?”

“Yes. She cannot get enough of me, so…” He saw the moment Roz decided to answer him honestly rather than deflecting with something sexy to throw him off, a flick of his eyes to check the others weren’t paying attention. “I don’t know if it will last. But we are trying, I think.”

Shit. Well, okay then. Good for him. “Good to see you’re still keeping it classy with the messages.”

“Shut the fuck up, Marly. You should be taking notes, you sext like you’re in bad porn.”

“Yeah whatever,” he slapped a hand on Roz’s shoulder. “I’m happy for you, asshole.”

Cliff meant it, so he’d let the bad sexting comment slide. He had a date lined up after the game too, and it’d be nice to enjoy it knowing his bro was back on track with his lady.

“Thank you,” Roz said, about as quiet as Cliff had ever heard him.

“No problem,” he grinned. “Now let’s go get ‘em, Cap. Send Montreal back to their locker room crying, then show our ladies a good time.”

But unfortunately neither of their dates happened, because Cliff took Hollander the fuck out on the ice.

*

The next day, he was sitting with Roz in the hospital waiting room.

Cliff had cancelled his date last night. He’d felt so fucking guilty, kept thinking about Hollander out cold and unmoving, then the thick silence at the hotel while they waited for someone to let them know Cliff hadn’t fucked him up beyond repair with a stupid, run-of-the-mill, clean hit. Honestly, he’d also been a little afraid to show his face on the streets of Montreal in case a hoard of Voyageurs fans were out for his blood. He couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it.

Roz had hung around all evening too, doing his captainly duty of making sure Cliff didn’t lose it, probably, and for the optics of wanting to ensure the Voyageurs captain was alright. Though he’d been quieter about it than Cliff might have expected. Before they’d gone to bed, once they’d been told Hollander was going to be fine, he’d asked Roz if he’d go to the hospital with him in the morning. Cliff wanted to apologise in person, not dump the responsibility on Roz, and he agreed with less resistance than Cliff expected. Like, it was a normal thing for a captain to do, with an injury like that, but he’d expected some reluctance. Maybe he shouldn’t have, after how quiet he’d seemed about it too, once Cliff had surfaced from his own guilt on finding out Hollander was going to be okay.

*

Hollander was loopy. Arm strapped up and purple-red bruising all across his nose and cheeks, and clearly on the good stuff for the pain.

He said a bunch of weird shit, a lot of it either too slurred or lacking context too badly for Cliff to make any sense of it at all. Cliff was mostly too giddy with relief to care. Every now and then, he’d repeat something Roz said, accent and all, smiling around the vowel sounds. It was clear he was at least trying to keep himself in check, every now and then he’d straighten up a little, clear his throat, set his face into a careful frown. It mostly failed miserably, but Cliff wasn’t about to be the asshole that pointed it out, especially not when it was his fault.

“I had plans this evening Marleau,” Hollander said, practically pouting, which was something Cliff could take the time to laugh at later, “you fucked it up.”

“Hey, I’m sorry man,” said Cliff, sincere as he could manage when faced with the doped-up ire of the Voyageurs captain. “What were you getting up to?” He heard Roz grumble something in Russian beside him. “You had a hot date or something?”

“Hollander—” Roz tried to cut in, but Hollander talked right over him.

“I was going to see Lily,” Hollander said, putting emphasis on the name, meeting Roz’s eye like he was pissed with him for interrupting. “This is nice,” he was still studying Roz, a little softer now, “but it would have been better if we could fu—”

“I am sure she will understand,” Roz spoke over him again, loud and actually kind of rude? And sure Roz could be a bit of a bitch on and off the ice when he wanted, but given the circumstances, it felt a bit much.

“Don’t be a dick, man,” Cliff said, giving him an elbow to the ribs for good measure. “You got a new girl, Hollander?” He hadn’t heard anything since the thing with Rose Landry had been all over the news. Perhaps talking about his girl would cheer him up. “Tell us about her.”

Hollander blinked, chewing on his lip as his attention strayed on and off them again. He sighed dramatically, flopped his head back onto the pillow. “Lily is great.”

“Hollander, you don’t have to—”

“I really like her,” he tapped his mouth with his pointer finger, “but that’s a secret, don’t tell him.”

“Uh, sure.” Cliff was running on too little sleep and the aftermath of stress to deal with this. “You got it, buddy.”

“Fuck, Hollander,” Roz muttered from beside him.

“Got pretty eyes. Pretty hair. Pretty, sexy little dots all over. Strong.” He frowned again, like he was trying to do a math problem in his head. “Like, strong on the inside. But on the outside too. So big. Can lift me up so easy. So easy.”

“That’s… nice.” Sounded like one hell of a woman.

“Fucks me so good.”

“We should go,” Roz stood up abruptly, mouth tight.

“Nooo, don’t,” Hollander made to grab at his arm.

“Hollander, shush now, yes?” It didn’t look as though Ilya noticed his own hand moving to rub the back of Hollander’s knuckles. “You will just be embarrassed later. We will go.”

Cliff was starting to think he was right. He didn’t know Hollander well, but that made it all the more apparent how much he liked to keep personal shit like this close to his chest. And how he obviously couldn’t do that right now.

“But no one will know,” Hollander insisted, fingers curling into Roz’s sleeve. “’Cause we’re not us, we’re Lily and Jane, remember? It’s a secret.”

Oh.

Cliff took a second to let all of that process, tried to run back through the nonsense Hollander had spilled out during their visit. It might have been a string of silly coincidences with a solid explanation. Sure, Hollander had said some weird shit, but they’d all done the same drugged up to the gills. He was sure Roz still had a video of him after a smack to the face that had had Cliff off the ice for weeks, mumbling all kinds of embarrassing bullshit about his grandpa’s old dog, of all things. It might not have been enough to make it obvious, unless you were Cliff, who’d had a bit of headstart on putting a few things together about a Montreal girl called Jane.

“Yeah, you’re right Hollander,” Cliff said. Both Roz and Hollander looked at him with twin expressions of absolute dismay. “I’ll get going. But I’m sure Roz’ll be happy to keep you company a little longer.”

Ilya shot Cliff half a worried look, one that said please and thank you and we’ll talk about this later and we’re never talking about this again, all at once. But then Hollander got all doped-up happy and wide doughy smiles again, getting all clingy and pawing to get Roz’s attention back on him. Damn. Cliff wondered if Hollander was the type of guy who’d find this funny or mortifying later on. He hoped him and Roz might let him find out over a beer sometime.

“I’m sorry again, Hollander. Get well soon, yeah?” He smiled at Hollander’s serious little nod, gave Roz a firm slap on the shoulder. “I’ll leave you and the Lady Jane to it, big dog.” He winked, and let himself out of the room. Feeling stupid with relief at not having single-handedly wrecked the golden boy of Canada’s career, and also having figured out a mystery that had been bothering him for years – actual fucking years, shit – Cliff strolled on down to the hospital gift shop to see if they sold “congrats on your secret boyfriend he’s hot as hell” greeting cards.