Chapter Text
Note: Each of these chapters are stand-alone, as I have to assume Ilya will learn his lesson each time!
CLIFF
“Nice digs,” Cliff says appreciatively, an impressed look on his face. His head swivels, taking in the surroundings as he kicks off his shoes.
Shane and Ilya sold Ilya’s old place in Ottawa to symbolically close the chapter of their lives where they unintentionally caused each other and themselves so much pain and purchased a new home together where they can build their future. The house itself is a modern marvel of functionality and style, with its sleek lines, smooth natural wood, open spaces, and the floor-to-ceiling windows that offer sweeping views of the open skies and lawns of lush, dense grass that stretches out to the thick, well-trimmed topiaries that form the fence line that borders the property. The topiaries are tall and dense to offer seclusion from the outside world in the sanctuary they have made their own.
“So this what Rolex money buys, yeah?” Cliff says admiringly and Ilya laughs, elbowing him affectionately. The older man immediately grabs him and tries to rub his knuckles against Ilya’s skull which results in Ilya’s playfully outraged shout and tussling that carries them from the house’s foyer to the living room.
This is the first time Ilya has seen Cliff face-to-face since the wedding, and there was a part of him that had been nervous- he hasn’t really had a chance to talk privately with Cliff since he and Shane were outed, and while Cliff had sent him a whole string of supportive emojis at the time- Cliff’s preferred style of communication, much to the dismay of the Raiders social media team- Ilya was worried that the easy physical affection that had always been part of their friendship would become awkward now that Cliff knew he was attracted to men. It’s a relief to see that Cliff is just the same as he always is.
“Speaking of your sugar daddy, where is Hollzy, anyway?” Cliff asks as he drops down onto the couch, carelessly sprawled out- Cliff’s sister, Cosette, calls it ‘man-spreading’.
“Shane had last minute sponsor thing in Montreal,” Ilya says, keeping the explanation vague as he drops down so he’s sitting next to Cliff on the luxurious couch Shane picked out a week ago. They’ve already fucked on it at least four times and Shane now stocks the disposable leather wipes in the coffee table to prevent any additional stains they are forced to hide behind one of Shane’s many, many, many pillows.
A ‘last minute sponsor meeting’ is what Shane had told him, anyway, even though they both knew it isn’t true. Ilya is sure the ‘sponsor meeting’ does exist as Shane is shockingly bad at lying for someone who hid that he’s gay and fucking his rival for over a decade, but whatever it is, it isn’t urgent enough for Shane to cancel plans so he can get it done today. Thinking back to their fight about Shane’s ‘sponsor meeting’ earlier that morning, Ilya fights the urge to frown.
Shane had been excited in that quiet, understated Shane-like way of his that Ilya about the plans Ilya had made for his old teammate- and close friend- to stay in Ottowa for a couple of nights so Cliff can meet Shane properly as Ilya’s husband, not just his friend. It was only when Ilya mentioned earlier that morning that he’s also invited Troy and Harris over to meet Cliff that Shane suddenly had a meeting several hours away that couldn’t be re-scheduled.
Ilya had been so frustrated that he called him out on it, where he usually lets Shane’s excuses for not socialising with Ilya’s friends slide. He’s just sick of Shane not putting in any effort with his friends when Ilya hardly complains about having to spend time with Hayden or J.J. It feels like Shane has double-standards, which he accused him of during their argument.
He feels a twinge of regret now, as he remembers the expression on Shane’s face in response to Ilya’s furious accusation- the anger and frustration he had expected, but the hurt in the wet gleam of Shane’s too-shiny eyes had taken him aback, and still makes him uncomfortable to think about now. He never wants to be responsible for putting that look on Shane’s face, and the knowledge that he has sits restlessly with him.
It’s only the memory of Troy’s look of dejection and the sad concern on Harris’ face after their last practice that has Ilya refusing to back down from the argument first. At Harris’ urging, Troy had finally admitted that Shane’s cool, distant treatment of him since Shane joined the team is really starting to impact him. It made Ilya feel so helpless and upset to hear Troy talk about how Shane’s refusal to even give him a chance makes him feel like he’ll never get to be anything more than the mistakes he made when he was too afraid to admit he was gay.
Troy is Shane’s teammate, and, more than that, he’s Ilya’s friend. Yes, he made mistakes and said cruel things, but Shane knows better than anyone how the fear of being outed can make people think and act in ways that they otherwise never would. Troy is willing to make amends for his past actions, and Shane owes Troy the chance to grow and change and become a better person, at least for Ilya’s sake and for the sake of team cohesion.
Even knowing that he made the right decision, he is still crushingly disappointed that Shane isn’t here when he was so excited for his best friends and his husband to spend time together. He was even excited for the good-natured chirping he was sure to endure from Cliff about “Montreal Jane” and how Ilya was so hung up on “her” that he used to blush over “her” text messages.
Cliff also looks disappointed, which makes Ilya feel even worse. “Ah, damn, I was looking forward to seeing him,” he says.
“Hopefully he will be back tomorrow,” Ilya tells Cliff. “But I have invited Troy and his boyfriend, Harris, to come over for lunch today, so you will still get to meet them.”
Cliff’s brow furrows, as if he’s confused. “Do you mean ‘Troy’ as in, Troy Barrett?” He clarifies, and when Ilya nods, he’s surprised when Cliff starts to laugh.
“Hah!” he says, reaching over to clap a friendly hand on Ilya’s shoulder and jostle him. It’s a familiar gesture, one that Cliff had started back when Ilya was just a rookie and it had still been so confusing to him then, the concept of a friendly touch that had nothing to do with anger or lust, just “bros being bros”, as Cliff would put it. Cliff is grinning at him, his expression as warm and familiar as it’s ever been, and Ilya is so relieved that there is no hesitation or wariness or discomfort there, following the FanMail. “Good one, Rozy,” Cliff tells him with a chuckle. “You had me going for a second there!”
Ilya is confused. “I don’t get joke,” he says, and Cliff’s grin falters slightly.
“You know, the Barrett thing? You weren’t actually being serious, were you?” He asks.
“Of course,” Ilya says, surprised by the shift in Cliff’s expression. He knows Troy was an asshole to a lot of players when he played for Toronto, but Cliff has never been one to hold a grudge and he’s always let insults slide off him. Ilya also finds it hard to imagine Kent and Troy singling Cliff out for their insults seeing as Cliff is almost a full head taller than either of them with biceps the size of Troy’s head- he just can’t see either of them accusing Cliff of being a cocksucker or a fag.
“Are you kidding me, Roz?” Cliff asks, and he’s not just frowning now, he’s actually looking upset. “Why the fuck do you think I’d want to see that asshole’s face off the ice, where I won’t get arrested for assault if I punch his teeth in?”
“Hey!” Ilya interjects, and it’s his turn to glare, a surge of frustration rising inside him. “Troy is my teammate- and friend,” he warns but Cliff just scowls back at him.
“Yeah? And what does Hollander think about that?” He asks with a loud scoff that leaves Ilya feeling wrong footed and like he’s missing something. Even as he argues in defense of Troy, he can feel something churning uncomfortably in his gut. Something foreboding.
“Shane is still getting to know the real Troy, not who he had to pretend to be when playing for Toronto,” he tells Cliff, which is a generous interpretation of an overstretched truth. Ilya is definitely doing his best to help Shane get to know the real Troy, the one who is brave and strong enough to face his fears and stand up for what is right, and he’s becoming increasingly fed up with Shane’s refusal to even attempt to meet him halfway. The double-standards between Shane’s friends and his are frustrating, even though he knows Shane is still adjusting to being out and to the Centaurs.
Harris keeps telling him to be patient, that Shane must have a lot of internalised homophobia he’s dealing with, just like Troy had, but Ilya wishes Shane would just talk to him about it. Troy even offered to speak to Shane, as he also had to work through so much self-hatred about his sexuality, but when Ilya tried to suggest it Shane had immediately shut it down without even hearing Ilya out, just like he has shut down every attempt made by Ilya for them to hang out with Troy and Harris or go on a double-date or even do one of those cute couple interviews that Harris keeps suggesting for the Centaurs social media.
He was really hoping that Shane would agree to lunch today because Cliff is here too, as having an extra person there would have made it feel less like a double-date and Shane might be more comfortable with it. Only, when he had told Shane this morning that he had invited Troy and Harris to join them, Shane had just looked at him, his expression carefully smoothed to that blank mask that Ilya hates, and said, “good luck with that,” in his flattest voice.
It had been what started the argument between them that morning, and Ilya can feel the weight of it lingering. When he’d accused Shane of still being jealous, Shane had given him the exact same look of incredulous, angered disgust that Cliff is wearing now before he stormed out of the house, leaving Ilya behind to fume.
Cliff hasn’t stormed off but he looks like he’s considering it as he laughs without any humour. “Hollander’s ‘still getting to know the real Troy’?” He repeats, mocking in a way that genuinely shocks Ilya. “Has Hollander’s mom been putting you through her infamous PR training, Roz? That’s such a dumb fuck fake media answer. No fuckin’ way Hollander’s cool with hanging out with Barrett any time he isn’t forced to as his teammate.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Marley?” Ilya demands, upset and frustrated by the apparent unwillingness of any of his friends in getting to know Troy, when Troy is working so hard to improve himself, and he had sounded so excited to meet Cliff after all Ilya’s stories about his time in Boston.
Cliff scoffs. “What the fuck do you think I’m talking about?” He demands furiously. “Barrett’s a nasty piece of shit that I wouldn’t piss on if he was on fire!” he spits out, wearing the same expression that he wears on the ice when he’s about to drop gloves and break someone’s nose. “There’s no fuckin’ way he didn’t call Hollander every fuckin’ racist and homophobic slur under the sun- not when he sure as shit didn’t hesitate to use them on me, and I sure as shit didn’t think twice about laying him and that fucker Kent out cold when they ran their racist goddamn mouths!”
“But you’re white,” Ilya says without really thinking. He winces slightly after saying it, knowing he deserves the dark, angered look that Cliff gives him, even if he’s still so fucking confused over it.
“Watch your fuckin’ idiot mouth,” Cliff says warningly. “And what the fuck, Rozy? We were teammates for, what, seven or eight years? And we’ve known each other about ten? I fuckin’ know I’ve talked about being Métis in front of you. I’ve fucking posted about it online, for shit’s sake!”
“I thought- Mets is American baseball fan?” Ilya says hesitantly and Cliff now gives him a look, like he can’t figure out if he’s more angry, incredulous, or very, very unwillingly and reluctantly amused. He settles for a look of sheer disbelief, like he can’t believe that anyone could be so fucking stupid. Ilya’s stomach swoops like he’s just missed a step while walking upstairs, the realisation that he’s missed something big settling over him.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Cliff mutters again before he laughs, the sound entirely without humour. He runs an agitated hand through his hair. “For fucks sake, Roz, being Métis has nothing to do with baseball, it’s what my people are called- we’re Indigenous. Do you at least know what that means?”
“They are people who were here first?” Ilya says hesitantly. “Um, they are called Indians, I think?” He’s heard someone call them that before.
Next to him, Cliff clenches his fists and closes his eyes as he takes a deep breath. “I am going to let that go once and only once, because I know English isn’t your first language and you genuinely don’t know how fuckin’ offensive and racist calling us that is,” he says, his eyes still closed, like he doesn’t even want to look at Ilya, or that he knows if he does then he’s breaking Ilya’s nose.
“I did not mean to be offensive,” Ilya says, and even in his confusion, he can feel how his face burns with shame. “I would never use this word for your people if I knew.”
Cliff sighs, opening his eyes again. He looks disappointed, almost, and it rattles Ilya. His friendship with Cliff has always been such a stable part of his life, ever since Cliff became part of it; he’s always acted like Ilya’s older brother, just as ready to egg him on as they do shots at a club with the music pounding through them as he is ready to scruff Ilya like a misbehaving kitten after he snorted a line of coke off a woman’s tits.
Their relationship has always felt stable, reliable, and grounding; Cliff has always looked out for him, whether he’s drunk or high or depressed; he’s the person that Ilya wishes Alexei could be. Seeing how disappointed Cliff looks in him now makes Ilya’s insides curdle, hot shame flushing through him at knowing he’s lett Cliff down, even if he doesn’t yet understand how.
“Ilya, I need you to shut the fuck up and let me explain this, because I swear to fuck, if you open your mouth before I finish, I’m going to punch you in it.” Cliff tells him as his eyes bore into Ilya’s own, the look on his face uncompromising. Ilya silently nods his head, because he wants to understand where he went wrong so he never accidentally hurts Cliff again.
Cliff takes a deep breath then exhales slowly and Ilya watches him unclench his fists so he can rest his hands flat on his thighs with a kind of forced calm. “My grandfather died in police custody,” he says quietly. “And he died because the police assumed that him being Métis meant he was just another drunk, because the racist fucks assume we’re all alcoholics and drug addicts and abusers who suck on the government’s tits for hand-outs. My grandpa walked into the damn hospital and said he didn’t feel good but they did the barest fuckin’ minimum before trying to send him off. The fuckin’ doctors notes said ‘do not believe he has a primary medical problem’ and ‘this is purposeful and deliberate behaviour’ and ‘does nothing to help himself’.
“My grandpa started getting upset, saying he didn’t feel right, so the hospital decided to call the fuckin’ police. An hour later, and my grandpa is fuckin’ dead in a jail cell and the autopsy proved he was stone-cold sober. He died of heart failure, but because the doctors and police all assumed he was drunk and was faking being sick to get drugs, he didn’t get the treatment he was begging for- and nobody, not the hospital or the doctor or the police, was ever held responsible.
“I could have grown up with my grandpa and my dad could have grown up with his dad, but I’ll only ever have stories, and all my dad and uncles have left are their memories. If my grandpa had been white, or even white-passing like me and my sisters, he’d probably have survived. But the hospital and police just saw him as another ‘drunk Indian’ and now he’s dead.”
The bitter regret and the anger Ilya feels towards himself tastes sour in his mouth. He knows he never meant to, but he feels sick about how his ignorance has offended one of his best friends. “I am so sorry, Marly,” he says, when Cliff stays quiet. “I am so sorry for your grandfather and for stupid thing I said.”
Cliffs nods shortly. He doesn’t say it’s okay, because it’s not, and Ilya knows it’s not, but he does nudge Ilya’s knee with his own. Ilya feels himself settle slightly at the gesture, Cliff’s unspoken promise that as pissed off with Ilya as he is right now, it’s not going to destroy their friendship.
“Do you understand now,” Cliff asks, “why I want to rearrange Barrett’s face for calling me a ‘redskin’ and ‘dumb Indian’ and a fucking crack baby? And why I want nothing to do with someone who laughed when Kent made jokes about my ‘welfare mom’ and how ‘savage’ I am on the ice?”
“Troy did not mean those things,” Ilya says, although that defence feels… weaker, somehow, than it had before, when Troy was speaking so earnestly about the pressure he felt to fit in at Toronto, the sacrifices that he had to make to ensure nobody found out his secret. “He was scared that other players would find out he is gay,” Ilya tells Cliff. “He only said those things to fit in.”
“Ilya, you dumb fuck, do you think I give a single shit if he meant it?” Cliff asks, incredulous. “He still fuckin’ said it! What if I went around calling Svetlana the n-word and Hollander a ladyboy and asking how much Hollander’s mom charged for a ping-pong show, but then I said, ‘actually I’m gay and I didn’t really mean it when I called you a fag every time we played against each other’?
”Do you think you would say ‘oh, you’re gay? Then of course I forgive you, Cliff, for that time you said my mama’s a weak-ass pussy bitch for killing herself. I’d love to be friends now I know you were just scared that if you didn’t call my mama slurs or laugh when Kent called her a gold-digging whore for marrying my much older father then someone might realise you like sucking cock’. Because you have to realise that’s exactly what you’re expecting of me and Hollander.”
Ilya forces himself to take a deep breath; his mouth tastes like copper in his rage and the urge to beat Cliff’s face at hearing those despicable things spoken in such a mocking tone almost overwhelming him.
“Oh, sorry, did I offend you?” Cliff asks sarcastically. “Well, you can’t get upset because I didn’t actually believe what I was saying when I asked if your mom killed herself because she was so ashamed of her faggot son.”
“Shut up!” Ilya snarls, and he can feel his whole body shaking. “Just shut your stupid mouth, okay? I get it!”
“Do you?” Cliff demands, still looking furious. “Do you really get it? Because you’re looking real fuckin’ angry right now, and you actually do know I didn’t mean a single fucking word of that. So how do you think I feel about hearing, what, six or seven years of that brand of racist, homophobic, misogynistic bullshit every time I played against Toronto? Do you think it actually matters to me or anyone else if Barrett did or didn’t mean it? Do you think him not meaning it makes him saying it any less offensive? Barrett’s a fuckin’ coward and if you’re going to keep calling him your friend, then that’s it for us, Ilya. I’m not some goddamn saint like Hollander must be, because this is my line in the sand.”
Ilya takes a shaky breath, his heart pounding in his chest like he’s just finished a full workout.
Fuck, he thinks, as horror grips him with its sharp, unrelenting claws. Fuck, what has he been putting Shane through? Tears sting at his eyes and he bows his head, pushing his palms against them hard enough to hurt. He feels sick. He feels dirty. He feels the kind of horrible, sinking regret that he hasn’t experienced since he was on that plane, thinking he was going to die, and his last words to Shane had been filled with bitterness and anger.
He wants to be angry at Troy, and he is- he’s furious- but he also knows that being angry at Troy is just his weak attempt at deflecting the anger he feels towards himself. Because Shane had made it completely clear to him that he didn’t want to be around Troy and that he did not forgive Troy’s mistakes, but Ilya had assumed that Shane was still jealous, or that he was being petty about old insults. Troy’s explanation of why he used slurs against other players had made so much sense to Ilya at the time, his understanding of the other man’s fear of being outed coloured by his memory of the terror he used to feel about his own father finding out.
Except he hadn’t gone around calling players slurs, had he? And Shane, who was stuck in Montreal’s toxic locker-room, he hadn’t called people cocksuckers or faggots so he fit in. Instead, he’d told his teammates the truth and he’d shouldered the brutal consequences of that choice with stoicism.
Little wonder, then, that Shane didn’t have any time for Troy’s excuses. Because that’s exactly what they are, Ilya realises. They’re just excuses- excuses from someone who doesn’t even acknowledge or seem to care about how deeply his words had cut Shane, or Cliff, because why else would he have been so enthusiastic about meeting Cliff today, or tell Ilya how upsetting it is to him, that Shane won’t even give him a chance. For the first time, Ilya finds himself wondering if Troy even deserves that chance.
“I am so sorry, Cliff,” he repeats his earlier apology, even as he knows that it’s not enough. “I do not have better words,” he admits, “not in English or Russian. I have been a shitty friend and a shitty husband; I am not trying to make excuses when I say I was not in a good place, in my head, when I started spending time with Troy. I thought I understood him and he understood me, during this time when I felt so alone. It was easy for me to accept his apology because I felt like I got to see the real him, and then I could not understand why Shane did not see the real Troy too. I felt like I had given him a chance, so why would Shane or you not give him a chance?”
“You realise how fucked up that is, right?” Cliff asks. His voice his gruff, but it’s gentler than Ilya thinks he deserves.
“I will make it up to you, and to Shane,” he promises, lifting his head up from his hands, to meet Cliff’s eyes with his own so that Cliff can see his sincerity. “Troy is still my teammate, but between him and Shane, or him and you, there is no choice for me to make- you are my brother, Cliff, even when I am idiot, and Shane is my husband; there is nobody I will ever put before Shane, and no friendship that I would pick over ours.” Ilya shakes his head then. “Even if you did say we cannot be friends anymore, because of how stupid I have been, I still could not stay friends with Troy,” he says, and realises as he says it how true it is. He can’t imagine himself staying friends with Troy, not after Cliff has re-contextualised the harm that Troy caused by putting his own self-preservation above all the people he had hurt.
Ilya should have known better- he shouldn’t have needed it spelled out to him, like a stupid child. He knows how much words hurt; his Papa never had to lay a hand on Ilya or his wife to leave them bloodied and bruised where nobody else could see the wounds. To this day, the word ‘lazy’ still makes Ilya flinch internally.
“You’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot,” Cliff says, before elbowing him, maybe a little bit rougher then usual. “Let’s stop wasting our time on nasty pricks who don’t deserve it and I’ll set up Chel while you cancel on Barrett and his boy-toy and call Hollzy to start grovelling so he’ll come back home and I can actually get to meet my best friend’s husband. Yeah?”
Although he still feels sick with guilt and shame, and he thinks he’s going to continue feeling that way for a long time, Ilya still manages to smile at Cliff, achingly grateful.
“You are a good friend, Marly,” he says and Cliff snorts.
“I know I am,” he says. “Now go call your husband.”
“I will,” Ilya says, standing up. “Then he can beat you at hockey off the ice like he beats you on the ice. And I will beat you both, of course.”
“Fuck off!” Cliff laughs, and Ilya grins at him before leaving the room for privacy to call Shane and give him the very big apology he deserves.