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2018, before the Olympic games in Korea. To Cliff Marleau, the beginning of the camp couldn't come at a better time. The atmosphere in Boston was getting… thick.
The season's been shit so far, they've barely held above the mid of the table, which was already enough to put everyone on edge. Then the rumours about Roz started. That he was not going to re-sign with the Raiders. Marleau called bullshit. That he was supposedly meeting with managers in — of all the places — Ottawa. No fucking chance. The team laughed when that one reached them.
Except Roz didn't. And he didn't say it wasn't true.
Marleau didn't know what to think. Him and Roz have been doing this shit for better part of a decade now. Their friendship was the quiet kind, where you look back in time and see the same person by your side every time. On ice. Gym. Bars. Where you piss each other off more often than not and throw gloves when anyone else tries it. They didn't talk life — there was little that was life and wasn't hockey anyway. But to fuck off to goddamn Ottawa, without a warning to Marleau, both his friend and his fucking alternate, that surely deserved a mention.
In short, Marleau fucking hated Ottawa, just for being a part of that stupid rumour. But whether Ottawa was real or not, something was definitely up. Roz was, for a lack of better word, being a bitch.
Not on the ice, nor in the changing room, the captain Rozanov was sharp as ever. Joking with the team while pushing them harder than ever before. Speeches and wagers before every match to motivate the team, when the morale and results were shit. Captain Rozanov was pushing, as if it were his last chance for the cup.
The Roz that stayed in the locker room after the team had left was different. Smiling and sad at the same time. For the fist time since Marleau knew him, quiet. Glued to his phone.
Marleau tried to take a peek once — the years-long correspondence with Jane was hardly a secret at this point. He had bruises for a week from where Roz slammed him into the lockers.
So yeah, a two-week camp with team Canada before the Olympics sounded like a fucking holiday. Although there wasn't a public announcement yet, he had no doubts Hollander would be chosen as the captain, and Marleau couldn't wait to get a break and play with a no-bullshit, full-commitment-to-hockey captain for two weeks.
______
Well, it was fucking weird, setting his stuff down on a Montreal home bench — the rink that would be the team Canada's training ice for the period. He shook hands and exchanged uncomfortable looks with the rest of the players crowding the room, which quickly became too small for the broad selection invited.
No one protested when he set his stuff down into empty stall belonging to a Finnish player on Metros roster. There was no doubt that when the cut came and the final team was selected, Marleau — Boston's leader in points and one of the most decorated players in the room— would make the list.
The ice time was perfect. Loud and quiet just where it needed to be, the skating and sweat quieting the mind. The buzz of forty bodies on ice, barked orders and drills filling it with the only thing that mattered. Hockey.
Skating at camp was like skating at an all-star. No, it was better. The stakes were higher. There was no audience to entertain. Marleau loved Boston, loved skating and playing for the team. But here, he was playing only for himself, for his spot in Korea. Showing off. And fuck, if he didn't love to show off.
'Today's formations,' the coach shouted over the noise of forty pairs of skates coming to halt around him.
'First attack — Hollander. Pike. Marleau. Second…'
Fucking aye. Marleau skated to the pair he was assigned to, already together to the side of the group. He didn't care to hear the other assignments.
'Hollander.' He offered his fist in greeting and Hollander bumped it without taking his eyes of the coach.
'Pike.' Second fist bump.
'Try not to break anyone's bones today, Marleau.' Pike didn't share Hollander's aversion to speaking over the coach. Marleau had a feeling they were either going to get along perfectly or throw glows by the time the scrimmage was over, same team or not. Likely both.
'You must be relieved to know we're on the same side for today,' Marleau teased.
Pike scoffed, offended for his captain's sake as if it were a loyalty test.
'We're good, man,' Hollander broke his silence to interrupt Pike. 'Let's just play.'
'Aye, let's fucking play,' Marleau agreed, skating to his position on the emptying ice.
_______
'Good game.' Hollander skated besides him to the bench when their time was over.
'It was shit,' Marleau laughed in response. That was more accurate description.
'Don't be shit on second rotation then,' Pike found his way into the conversation. Marleau was sensing a pattern.
_______
Their second rotation — against the third formation this time — was decent.
Their third was almost good. They clicked as players, they just needed speed. But speed came with trust, and trust came with time. Trust was the difference between searching for each other before passing the puck and just shooting, knowing someone will be there to catch it. Hollander and Pike had that trust, and Marleau was starting to gain it.
_______
When Marleau finally hit the showers, his mind was pleasantly blank and his toes completely numb. He loved the exhaustion. The sore muscles. His body taking over and shutting of his brain.
The washing. Putting on fresh clothes. Packing up. A walk to his hotel. A choregraphy so well rehearsed he didn't need to think. Dinner brought to his room and eaten in front of the TV. And no fucking locker room drama anywhere.
Marleau loved the Olympics.
_______
The second day's schedule hit Marleau's email two minutes after his alarm clock went off. From day two, practice in two groups. His was starting at nine. Then again at six for the afternoon practice.
The home team's locker room welcomed him with his name and number, black on printer paper and taped to the stall he picked the day before over the Fin's name. Far from permanent, but far from temporary too.
'Fuck me, same shift again, huh?' Pike grinned from the door, the acknowledgement closest to friendliness the rivalry between their teams allowed.
'Another opportunity for you not to fumble the pass and finally hit my stick,' Marleau returned the courtesy.
'I'm used to playing with line-mates who skate faster than my grandma, so…'
'Keep it for the ice, yeah?' Hollander appeared behind Pike, ever the captain. He was only a year older than Marleau, but he had that authority about him, he opened his mouth and people shut up. It was different than Roz — when he opened his mouth, you shut it or he'd shut it for you — with Hollander, the captain voice built anticipation. He was a man of few words, and he made them count, so you better listened.
'Careful, Pike,' Marleau teased when Hollander turned his back to them, 'you don't want to get the Scott Hunter treatment.'
Pike laughed. Then stopped, when Hollander's head snapped back to them, screaming murder.
'Sorry, cap,' Marleau raised his arms to his shoulders, showing his hands in a gesture of playful surrender. A gesture that became automatic after years of locker rooms with captain who didn't hesitate to rough up mouthy teammates. And Marleau didn't hesitate to open his mouth.
Hollander just looked at his arms, shaking his head. Something about Marleau's gesture made him smile before he covered it with a disapproving frown Marleau didn't quite believe.
'Sorry man,' Marleau repeated, encouraged by Hollander's apparent amusement. 'What was the fight about anyway?'
Hollander laughed, continuing to shake his head, as if the fight was a fond memory. Then he turned to his gear, began to change and didn't speak again until they hit the ice.
'Don't sweat it, man,' Pike threw his way before he too turned to his stall, 'he won't tell anyone what it was about.'
Marleau nodded, letting the conversation die. It took a little longer to die in his head. What possible secret beef could Hollander have with Hunter? What secret beef could anyone have with Hunter, or Hollander for that matter? Hunter wasn't out back then — and besides, Hollander didn't strike him as that kind of person anyway. And fuck, it was the second day of camp and he was already neck deep in fucking drama and conspiracy theories.
He put on his helmet with the force of a person trying if it would crack. Hit the ice with the speed of a person being chased. And his mind was finally blank.
_______
He was put in three different attack formations during the practice and ended with Hollander and Pike for the final scrimmage of the day anyway. The coaches were starting to see it just as he was starting to feel it. They were a good fit together. Marleau knew how to play with a demanding centre, be a part of the attack without getting swallowed by the flashier player.
Hollander was a very different player than Rozanov, but the principles stood the same. Their game was fast, aggressive, unpredictable in ways that demanded Marleau played on his edge to keep up and rewarded him when he did.
Pike was reliable, smart, reading the game and finding passes that were as cheeky as his demeanour. He was also brutal. The coaches were threatening penalties during drills when Pike was on the ice.
Playing on a line like that was a fucking drug. The game plan was the same as in his attack line in Boston, except Boston first line was built on years of practice that brought comfort to the game. The first line of team Canada has been playing together for total of three hours, could be broken up and mixed up at any point, and was just learning to work together in a way that demanded full attention.
'Same formation tomorrow.' The highest compliment a coach could offer on second day of camp. Then they broke for drills.
Face offs, Pike across the circle first. Trying to unsettle him with quips about Boston he's heard before. Marleau won six out of ten. Moved on to the next opponent. Hollander.
'How's the Montreal ice?' Coming from anyone else, asking that of Boston player would be a declaration of war. But this was Hollander, playing captain to the building team, welcoming a new player.
'Feels like home,' Marleau admitted, because ice was ice. 'The formation too.'
That seemed to startle Hollander, who raise his eyebrow simultaneously with the corners of his lips.
'Really?' Hollander shook his head again, as if it allowed the thought to settle. 'I don't think I play anything like Rozanov.'
The puck fell. Hollander won the face-off. Then another six of the ten total before Marleau moved again and prepared himself to face an Edmonton centre.
The exchange with Hollander stuck in his head, the way he pronounced Roz's name - stress on the second syllable, almost swallowing the o completely. The way most Russian players said it. Damn, he thought, he knew Hollander was dedicated to all aspects of hockey, and there was undeniable mutual respect underneath their rivalry — at least as much as he could observe from the Boston bench — but yeah, this was real fucking respect. Marleau should have learned how to pronounce the name like that years ago.
_______
'Good practice.' Hollander slapped his shoulder when they stormed the locker room before circling the bench, extending similar acknowledgement to the assembled group. Marleau watched as under his command, the group was forming into a team.
Hollander gave a short speech before leaving for the showers. Not as a captain, but as a player welcoming the rest to his home ice and city. He sounded a little like a coach. And to Marleau's surprise, a little like Roz too. He addressed each individual player — an impressive feat considering he never shared locker room before with most of them — but Hollander was known for not knowing how to give less than a hundred percent and doing his homework.
_______
Marleau tried to catch up with Hollander when they were leaving. If Hollander was stepping up to play captain, he could do his part and step up to support him. Someone should say good job to the man giving out the encouragements.
Except Hollander waved him off, his attention reserved only for his phone and the person he was furiously texting.
'Yeah, he doesn't speak to anyone when Lily texts him.' Pike appeared at his shoulder, wrapping his arm around him as if they were best friends.
'I'm telling you, that girl has him on a fucking leash.'
'We're supposed to pretend we don't even know she exists,' another Montreal player joins the conversation with a dramatic sight. A defenceman Marleau had the misfortune of getting to know too closely against the boards too many times, that everyone called JJ.
'I'm not even sure she does exist at this point,' Pike laughs.
'Mais ouais she does. Her name is Lily. And she must be soooo dreamy. Or fucking hot. And lives with the enemies in B—' JJ serenaded the unknown girl with a melody and a fluency of someone who's done this bit before, his french accent heavy and adding to the ridiculousness.He was interrupted by a shove from Pike.
'Enough of this fucking bullshit. Did you hit your head so many times it cannot retain more than one joke? Fucking annoying.' He shook his head at Marleau as if expecting him to support Pike in his outrage. As if this wasn't the first conversation he's had with JJ that didn't both start and end with fuck you.
Marleau laughed instead, which earned him appreciative slap from JJ and a fuck you from Pike. Except Marleau wasn't laughing at JJ. Fuck if this didn't feel familiar. Different team. Different country. Same fucking drama.
'Yeah I know exactly how you feel, man,' he told Pike. Didn't elaborate. It wasn't his fucking place. But he thought about telling Roz. Seeing his captain frothing at mouth when Marleau named all the ways he and Hollander were the same just to piss him off. Down to the secret fucking girlfriend. Un-fucking-believable. Roz was going to get so fucking pissed. Marleau couldn't wait.
_______
Pike invited everyone to a bar that night and called it a team building. He picked a creepy little hole two streets from the Metros' rink that pretended to be fancy by importing the shittiest European beers and selling them at as something exotic. The kind of place where forty guys could meet without making a reservation and it would be empty enough to accommodate them. With two bartenders on shift that seemed horrified by the crowd.
Marleau drank the shitty beer without complaint, saying hi to people around the room. A pair of defencemen who got drafted the same year he did. A right wing Boston traded to Pittsburgh two years ago.
He was on his third beer when Pike found him and dragged him to a booth the present Metros occupied.
'You're part of our line, you drink with us, buddy,' Pike called way louder than the noise of the room required. He was certainly long past his third drink.
'Just say you want dirt on Boston,' Marleau laughed but squeezed next to JJ anyway.
'I don't need any fucking dirt to stomp your asses!' Pike proclaimed to the whole bar as he sat across the table from him, next to Hollander.
'We're on the same team here, Hayden.' Hollander, nursing his beer, jumping to calm the conversation, but smiling through it like Pike getting wasted and being a dick was a good time for him.
'We should take a photo and send it to Boston, say hello to your captain!' Pike was determined to be a nuisance.
'Let's fucking do it,' Marleau laughed, clinking his bottle against Pike's outstretched glass, just as Hollander's maybe later came.
'Two more beers in him and we're good to go,' Pike informed him, his attempt at whispering so disgraceful the whole booth, and the one next to them, erupted into laughter.
Marleau bought Hollander his next beer because Hollander was getting chatty with the beer and Marleau was curious what the stoic captain had to say. He soon realised that maybe Hollander wasn't saving his words because he had nothing to say, but rather because Pike was unable to shut up and let anyone else speak.
'This fucking season, huh?' Hollander turned to him when the sheer volume of beer finally caught up with Pike and sent him stumbling for the bathroom. The phrase sounded so rehearsed Marleau laughed, but buzzed Marleau laughed at everything, as proved by Pike's terrible jokes, and Hollander didn't seem offended.
'Yeah, you'd think we'd be topping the table with how Rozanov is whipping us this season,' Marleau admitted to Hollander and JJ. It's not like any of it wasn't public knowledge. Roz was just as on edge in front of the cameras as he was in the locker room.
'Not sure what he's got up his ass, but man, dude needs to get laid or something.'
JJ laughed, his accent somehow present in every noise he made. Hollander almost choked on his beer. Marleau never clocked him for such a prude, but his face was turning red and it made him laugh. Being a Montreal captain, he could easily have his pick of women — or men, as Marleau started correcting himself since the Scott Hunter revelation — but one mention of getting laid and he blushed like a school girl.
'He's probably not the only one,' JJ pointed at Hollander, he too noticing his uncomfortable demeanour. The captain turn as red as his team Canada hoodie.
'Making fun of Hollander without me, that's low,' Pike reappeared by the table, holding four beers and letting three of them tip enough to drip on the floor. Marleau and Hollander quickly freed the poor beers from his grasp, distributing them for the table.
'I still think we should send that picture to Boston,' Pike suggested between gulps of his beer. Hollander agreed on the condition that he was switching to soda afterwards. Marleau seconded the proposition, just to be a dick to Pike.
Pike made him switch seats with JJ as to get him in the middle of the photo, next to Hollander. They took five pictures, all of them terrible. Marleau and JJ couldn't stop laughing. Pike wouldn't shut up. Hollander was sitting in the middle, giving his press conference smile, pretending to be oblivious to the chaos around him.
Marleau picked the photo where most people's eye were open, which was three. He had to choose between JJ and Pike and chose JJ just because. He opened chat with Roz and tried to type My new best friend Shane says hi, putting Hollander's first name in just to be an ass and make it sound like they were friends, except he was drunk and autocorrect was being a bitch.
The message came out as My news beast fiend Jane says ho. Marleau laughed so hard Hollander had to catch a glass he almost sent rolling of the table. It was luckily empty already. JJ looked over his shoulder at the fucked up message and laughed. Hollander looked over his other shoulder and turned white for a change. His colour spectrum was truly impressive.
Marleau was planning to fix the message. But he was also drunk, and drunk Marleau was lazy. And an asshole. He looked at the choking Hollander. He hit send. Hollander reached for his phone, but he was late and only managed to knock it off his hand.
'Relax, cap,' Marleau laughed as he picked it up. 'What's got your panties in a bunch?'
Hollander didn't respond. He downed his beer in single long drag. Marleau followed suite, and ordered two more. And a soda for Pike.
Roz saw the message. Didn't reply. Marleau was expecting a fuck you. The silence was better. The silence was a thousand fuck yous at once.
Hollander's phone buzzed instead and he hid the screen, drawing a long, perfectly synchronised Liiiiilyyyyyy out of JJ and Pike. Hollander disappeared to pick up his phone. Pike used his absence to order another beer. And then one more, when it became clear that Hollander was not coming back.
_______
Hollander apologised for disappearing at the next training session. Marleau apologised for being a dick. Pike apologised for almost puking on their skates while they talked.
The coach didn't apologise when he had Pike skating laps till he got the remaining alcohol out of his system. Sobering up and puking his guts out were both acceptable outcomes. Marleau laughed and earned ten laps for himself. He enjoyed every single one of them, especially when he got to pass wobbling Pike.
The team building, in other words, was a massive success. Pike's indisposition forced Hollander and Marleau to step up their game to make up for it, and their line was better for it, their cooperation turning from rehearsed to instinctual. The second line they scrimmaged seemed to have undergone a similar transformation and didn't give them anything for free.
Three days of camp. The outlines of the team rising and looking strong. Marleau knew there was still a lot of work ahead, but for now, he liked what he saw. He smiled. Then he found himself squeezed between the plexiglass and a massive defenceman from Toronto.
_______
After the training session, Hollander gave a speech to the cabin. Whatever Marleau saw during the practice, he must have seen it too, and his speech was surprisingly optimistic for a man who's catchphrase with press was I'm not going to speculate.
Marleau went to congratulate him when all celebratory handshakes, fist bumps and hugs were over, but the captain was gone. His eyes met Pike in the next stall and he knew what he was going to say before he said it. Lily.
The door towards the ice opened for a moment as people walked around and he caught a glance of Hollander leaning against the tunnel wall, speaking animatedly into his phone. Something about the pose reminded him of Roz when he left the locker room to chat with Jane, which reminded him of the text he sent last night. He checked his messages to see if Roz replied yet. No reply, but his eyes went involuntarily through the text he sent again. My news beast fiend Jane says ho.
Sober, seeing the name under a photo of Hollander triggered something. Shane changed to Jane. Ridiculous. Absolutely not.
He wasn't sure what gave him the courage to actually hit the call button next to Roz's name — they almost exclusively texted. The call ended before it started. The line was occupied.
His hand fell from his ear, the phone's robotic voice still talking, inviting him to call later. Marleau sat down, in someone else's stall. Stared at the phone. The thoughts circled on the periphery of his mind. They wouldn't still for long enough to formulate sentences.
Marleau watched the door leading to the tunnel. Phone in his hand. When Hollander appeared in the door, he pressed call again. This time, the phone rang. For barely a second. Then Roz's voice appeared at the other end, so quick he had to be holding his phone in his hand when it rang.
They spoke for less than a minute — a stupid excuse about returning from Canada later than originally intended that Marleau made up on the spot and Roz didn't question. Marleau wasn't sure what he would say if he did. He wasn't sure how he put together the sentences he did.
When he put his phone down, the thoughts began flooding in. Jane. Shane. Fucking hell.