Rating:

Not Rated

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow & Ilya Rozanov

Character:

Victor St. Simon

Additional Tags:

Good Friend Cliff Marlow, POV Cliff Marlow, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Confused Cliff Marlow

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of Sincere Communication

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-28 Words: 1,153 Chapters: 1/1

Cliff Marlow, Ally?

Summary

Now that Cliff knows the meaning behind Ilya’s chirps and speeches, he has some concerns.

Notes

This is set in the season between when Shane and Ilya define their relationship at the cottage, and when Ilya leaves Boston for Ottawa.

Cliff looked around the plane. They were flying from Montreal to Denver on a red eye and most everyone else on the team was asleep. Vic was in the back talking to his mom softly in french, but that was the only other movement he was aware of. Next to him Ilya snored with his head thrown back and mouth wide open.

Now or never, he thought to himself as he opened an incognito window on his phone typed in “angry gay sex?” and got a list of videos he absolutely did not want to watch, even for educational purposes.

Then he typed in “my friend is mean to his boyfriend?” And got the number for a domestic abuse hotline. He looked at Roz, then at the phone. Considering how well he knew the guy, he was 99% sure that wasn’t the case. Besides, he got the impression that Hollander liked it. Like, a lot. So much so that if it wasn’t kind of creepy, it would be absolutely adorable.

He could just ask Ilya about it, but the guy had been tight lipped since that night in the hospital when they were waiting for Shane to wake up. After Ilya had snuck in to see him, they’d left in silence and he decided to tactfully not comment on how lovesick and sad his friend had seemed afterwards.

Things were already getting back to normal after the All Star game, before he’d bodied poor Shane into the boards, but it felt like something had significantly changed over the summer. Something really good.

Roz was back to his old self again, mostly. He still went out with the team, except when they played Montreal, but he always went home alone. He still had women dripping off him, but he would respectfully move their hands or avoid their kisses until they got bored and left. Cliff knew the look of a man with a steady thing, he’d seen it happen to other players over the years. He assumed it would happen to him too eventually. It was just a matter of time before Ilya gave up the party life for good, and Cliff was happy for him.

The problems came when they were not in the club. The comments about Shane were back with a vengeance and now Cliff knew that Ilya knew exactly what he was saying. For someone who seemed genuinely afraid of being outed and going to Russian prison, the dude had absolutely no filter and only the flimsiest of plausible deniability. Especially considering he’d lived in the US for a decade and normally spoke English perfectly fine as long as he wasn’t upset or drunk.

“I’m going to throw Shane Hollander over my knee and spank him so hard tonight!” He’d told the team before the previous night’s game. Then he’d led the guys in a rousing chant of “SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!” Like a crazy person.

More and more, Cliff was convinced that Ilya was fucking with him, just a little bit. Getting weirder and weirder, challenging him to say or do something, and reveling in his awkward discomfort. It was such a classic Rozanov move that he couldn’t even be mad about it.

But on the ice today, Cliff overheard Roz telling Shane he was going to “dismantle” him. What does that even mean? He imagined that if he said that to any of the women he’d slept with, they’d call the fucking cops.

Shane had chirped back that Roz was a “sicko,” but he seemed delighted about it.

They’d only played each other twice so far in the season, but the same thing happened both times and it was really starting to freak Cliff out. The game before he said he’d wear Hollander like a jock strap, and during the face-off, he said he’d drowned him. In what? It was worrying that the best possible option was cum.

He noticed suddenly that the snoring had stopped. While he’d been contemplating the nature of his captain’s relationship with the captain of their rival team, the subject of his thoughts had woken up. He glanced down at his phone, which had thankfully gone to sleep and wasn’t blaring the domestic abuse hotline.

Slowly, Ilya reached into his lap and turned the phone back on, betraying his earlier search. “Are you being abused, Marly?”

”Fuck you, Roz. I’m working something out, okay?”

Ilya immediately switched to protective mode. “Is problem? Do I need to know?”

“No, not like that, there’s nothing going on. I was just trying to figure something out and I’m not getting the answers I need from the internet.”

”And what are you trying to figure out, maybe I can explain. Don’t worry, I’ll use small words.”

Marly sighed, looked around the jet at their sleeping team mates, and decided to be discreet anyway. “So, I have this friend.”

”Is he Spider-Man?” Ilya joked

“What? Why would he be Spider-Man?”

”Is joke from the internet, go on.”

”OK, but he’s not Spider-Man. He’s a, uh. Hockey player.”

Ilya’s eyes got big. “Is Scott Hunter?”

”Yeah,” Marly played along. “It’s Scott Hunter, how did you know?”

”Only gay player in league,” Ilya answered “Of course you would be obsessed with him.”

“I think it’s well known that I love the gays, unlike you.” Cliff teased

Ilya smirked, and motioned him to go on.

“So my uh good friend Scott Hunter, will sometimes say really aggressive things to his boyfriend, umm. Pip.”

”Kip” Ilya corrected.

“Right, Kip. So yesterday, he told Kip he would dismantle him, and the other day he said he would drown him. Do you.. do you know why a man would say something like that to his partner? It’s kinda weird, right?”

Ilya was both blushing and smirking now. “Obviously, I only know about women…” he trailed off while Cliff gave him an ironic nod. “But in my many conquests, I have met women who like to be pursued, do you know what I mean? Like bunny rabbit. They feel a little scared of big bad man, coming to get them. They know they are safe, of course, but they like to feel the thrill, to be held down...”

”Ok, ok, ok, I get it Roz, you’re a freak and the girls you fuck are also freaks, Jesus Christ, man.”

”I keep saying this, Marly, is just Ilya. But yes, I’m very confident that Kip is completely fine with this arrangement and is having a safe, sane, and consensual time.”

“That’s good, buddy” Cliff said, patting Ilya’s shoulder. “As long as uh, Scott and Kip are happy, that’s what matters.”

“They are.” Ilya chuckled and fell back asleep.

Cliff drifted off sometime later, no less confused, but no longer feeling worried for Shane Hollander. Tomorrow he would try and figure out how to keep someone in America when they had a Russian passport and a Canadian boyfriend.