Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

TORONTO – DECEMBER 2016

Cliff had an app on his phone. Sleeptight. He had installed it a few weeks back when his then-girlfriend had begun talking in her sleep. Mostly stuff about Rozanov and bees. Once a whole exchange about a tomato and a knife and 'rabbits like diced tomatoes, they do!' in a whiny voice.

The app was the kind that demanded access to everything on your phone. Contacts, locations and microphones. A free buffet of stolen content and useless information. He had set it up, with the best of his limited technological skills, to record only from midnight to four in the morning and had gotten a few good soundbites out of it. Most notably the rabbit and tomato one. And the sexy ones, of course.

The girlfriend was out of the picture now. Good fucking riddance. Never date a puck bunny! They'll fuck you and ask for your teammate's phone number right after. Dream about him, too.

And Cliff had forgotten about the app.

But his phone hadn't. The app had lain dormant until one night in a hotel room in Toronto. Cliff had woken to five new notifications the next morning.

2:18 - Sleeptight has recorded a new activity - talking
2:32 - Sleeptight has recorded a new activity - unknown
2:42 - Sleeptight has recorded a new activity - talking
2:46 - Sleeptight has recorded a new activity - unknown
3:00 - Sleeptight has recorded a new activity - talking

Cliff did not talk in his sleep. He slept like the dead and did not move a muscle. He was a brick, one of those statues that cover old tombs in Europe. He did not stir. He did not make any sounds.

Cliff wasn't alone in the hotel room, though, and Sleeptight had picked up on his teammate's sounds and words. Ilya Rozanov was still sleeping on the bed next to Cliff's, his face buried in a pillow. The two of them had met at the start of Ilya's rookie year and had been sharing rooms since then. They had even formed a sometimes strained but strong friendship. Cliff knew things about Ilya that only a few people in the world, or at least on this side of it, knew.

Ilya Rozanov was the son of a fucking asshole. A man who used to call late at night, from Russia, without thinking even once about the time difference. A man who now called constantly. At any given time, Ilya would pick up his phone and disappear in a hotel room bathroom whispering 'Papa' into it. He had started leaving his phone on loud. On very loud. The phone would stay on the bench during practice and whenever it rang or chirped, Ilya would drop everything, gloves, bag skates and captain reponsibilities, to answer it. With a worried 'Papa'.

Cliff hadn't asked. Yet. He wasn't the smartest donut in a Dunkin kitchen, but Cliff could still sense that something was wrong back in the old Motherland. Ilya had been tense. More than usual. But for a few weeks now, the most accurate way to describe Roz had gone from 'tense' to 'Holy fuck! This is borderline suicidal!'

The shift had come after a disastrous game against Montreal. The vibes had been wrong. Everything had been wrong. Ilya had been unresponsive at best on the ice. Slow, too. He had looked distracted and Cliff had wondered if maybe a text from Moscow had arrived with devastating news. Montreal hadn't fared any better on that day, so that had been a saving grace at the very least. Boston's very own Ryan Hammersmith had scored a beautiful goal in the second period and Hollander had managed to perform his usual Golden Prince of hockey shtick by sinking a puck in Boston's net. But Hollander had looked unaffected by it, despondent even. Ilya had looked at him, concerned, but had responded in kind during overtime. Two to one for Boston and on we go.

And on Rozy went. Hostile hockey, horny girls, cold vodka. Late nights in rival cities. Ilya had always been the type to fuck around and be loud about it. He had offered threesomes (no thanks!) and shots (fuck yeah!). He had left clubs with women. One or two. Or three. At the very same fucking time. He had taken off with a man, once, not that it was Cliff's business or anyone's really. He had ordered the most expensive bottles of vodka and had poured them down everyone's and anyone's throats. He had made Boston's club owners happy and its women happier.

But the last two years had been more reasonable. Ilya's unruly nature had been tamed. Ilya had found a tamer: Jane.

Cliff had first seen the name on Ilya's phone thousands of games ago, maybe more. Was it 2012? 2011, maybe? Ilya had always pretended that Jane was no one, that he wasn't blushing when she was texting him back, that he wasn't getting hard in locker rooms reading her texts. But Cliff had noticed it all. Jane, Jane, Jane. Get the man to settle down and marry you or I swear I'll organize the wedding before I've even met you!

Ilya had been starting to settle down. He had been tamed. Whipped. He had barely acknowledged the women who still came on to him in clubs. Cliff hadn't seen him too close to a man, either. Cigarettes had been nothing more than a prop in ROZANOV: The Movie, now in 3D! He had still been drinking his fair share of vodka, but he had done it phone in hand, reading her texts, smiling. Ilya Rozanov, the man women all over Boston lusted over had become the man of one woman. One lucky woman. Jane.

But that had been in October, and the months before it. This was December, and December meant cold temperatures and icy roads. This December meant cold Ilya and icy Rozanov.

Now, Ilya was fucking up his game. Ilya was fucking himself up. He was killing himself. Slowly and drunkenly. Cliff was worried. Roz's father still called, but Jane wasn't putting any color on Ilya's blushing Russian cheeks. She was gone. And Ilya wasn't taking it very well. Not well at all. He was trying to skate himself to death. He was fucking other girls to forget her, and drinking himself to oblivion. He wasn't successful, but he was persistent.

He had tried again the night before. He had scored a hat trick against Toronto, taunting Kent and Barrett into fights. He had fucked a girl in the club bathroom and then made out with a second one next to the table that held the collection of his empty glasses. He had been drunk. Incredibly drunk.

'Russians don't get drunk, Marly. We just stop pretending that we are normal...'

He had chuckled sadly at that, in the car that had driven them back to the hotel. He had repeated the word 'normal' like it meant more than it did and then sighed, his forehead hitting the cold glass of the window next to him.

Cliff had helped him out of the car. He'd had to physically help him out of the car. Fuck... Ilya had never been that drunk. Ever. They had been friends for five years and Cliff had seen Ilya in many different conditions, but this was the worst he had ever seen him. Fucking Jane.

Ilya had been half asleep when they had finally reached their hotel room, leaning against the wall while Cliff keyed the door open. He had sat on the edge of his bed, his head between his knees and had released a long sigh.

"Need help, Curly Boy?" Cliff had asked and Ilya had nodded with a whimper. So Cliff had helped.

Ilya had toed off one of his shoes, and Cliff had removed the other one. Ilya had leaned back, his head hitting the mattress and his fingers finding the waistband of his black jeans and the button at the top. He had tried undoing it, but had seemed too far gone to do it properly. Cliff had swatted his hands away and had unbuttoned Ilya's jeans himself.

Ilya had laughed at that, but it'd transformed quickly into a sob. Another one had been hidden behind Ilya's forearm as he'd pressed it over his mouth. And then, Ilya had gone silent. He had shimmied his pants off with Cliff's help. He had slipped under the sheets without a sound, without one of his usual, polite 'nighty night, you fucking idiot.' Complete worrying silence.

Until eighteen past two, apparently.

This was the first night in a long time that Cliff had shared his hotel room with Ilya. Cliff had bunked with Hammersmith on the last away games and a long string of home games had followed. Ilya was a good roommate to have. He was organised and tidy and usually did not scare you half to death with drunken sobs.

Cliff looked at Ilya, now, in the morning light that filtered through the gaps of the curtains. He was still sleeping off the alcohol and looked fine. At peace. But Cliff knew that as soon as he regained consciousness, the furrow between Ilya's eyebrows would come back. Ilya would have ten seconds at the most before his pain made itself known again.

Cliff looked at his phone and wondered if listening to Ilya's late night conversations would give him more insight into the misery he was drowning in. He didn't wonder for long. He tapped the latest Sleeptight notification and was sent to the last recording.

Oh god... Ilya's voice muffled by the pillow sounded like a plea, even without the word. Ilya was begging in his sleep. Ilya Rozanov, best player in the league, feared captain of the Boston Raiders was reduced to pleading with the figments of his imagination for the woman who had broken his heart, or so Cliff assumed. What else could it be? He moved to the first recording of the night and pressed play.

This was different. Ilya sounded happy now, his voice almost sing-songy. In his sleep, he had huffed a laugh. Cliff didn't feel the need to dive further into the meaning of the words. They didn't fully make sense to him without the context. And so Cliff moved on to the second recording which was something he would hopefully never have to hear again. Ilya was moaning in that one. Tuna was said to have aphrodisiac properties, Cliff knew, but surely Ilya's brain had conjured two very different scenes in the twenty-four minutes between the two recordings. Cliff deleted the soundbite and quickly tapped the next one. Ilya's voice was pleading again.

It was followed by movement. A spring in the mattress, a grunt, the sound of something hitting soft fabrics. Cliff pictured Ilya's fist striking his pillow. Ilya had awoken but had not made any other noise for the app to record, so it had stopped. Only to start again a few minutes after to record a whimper and a sob. Cliff recognised the Russian 'blyat' the app had classified as an 'unknown' activity and grimaced.

Cliff listened to Ilya's heartbreaking 'please' again to draw the full picture of Ilya's misery in the order it had presented itself in his subconscious. Then, he looked at Ilya again. The big, strong Russian man. The sad, jilted lover. The boy who had lost his mother at a young age and who had struggled to let anyone in ever since.

Fucking Jane.

Cliff deleted the recordings. No one needed to hear them. Not his captain, not Jane, not his ex-girlfriend who swore up and down that what you said in your dreams was the purest truth.

Ilya stirred and made a small noise, one that was halfway between his sad whimper and his aroused moan from earlier.

Cliff had slept in the same room as Ilya before and had heard the same little sounds many times, but he had never heard him sleep talk before. He shook his head and sighed. God that woman was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She was in Ilya's dreams, but not in his phone. She was in his head, but not in the expression on his face as he woke up, sadness reclaiming its territory between Ilya's brows.

Ilya opened his eyes, unfocused for a second before landing on Cliff's bed. He made a face and hid his head in the pillow.

"Morning, sunshine. How we doing?" Cliff asked.

Ilya groaned and moved his left hand in the air, seemingly to shut Cliff up. He sighed audibly, raised his head off the pillow and turned it towards his teammate.

"'M sorry..."

"What for?"

"Hm... Last night..."

"Oh so, Goldilocks remembers! I thought you'd be too fucked up to remember anything."

Ilya turned over and faced the ceiling, squinting.

"I told you... I wasn't drunk."

"No, of course not, Roz. You're Russian!"

Ilya closed his eyes but turned his face towards Cliff, nodding with a 'hm.'

"Hey. You can't go back to sleep, Illy."

"Ilya. Il-YA. Not Lily,” Ilya inhaled deeply and whispered sleepily, “I'm not Lily."

Ilya's breath caught on the exhale and he opened his eyes to look at Cliff. For a second, Ilya looked like a child who had been caught stealing candy in a store, but the image left Cliff's mind as fast as it'd come. Ilya sat up in his bed and looked at his phone. Anger replacing the guilt.

"When is the plane?" He asked in a small voice.

"We got two hours to get there. We're good. I just didn't want to have to actually wake you up."

Ilya nodded and carelessly threw his phone onto the nightstand. He sniffed and rubbed the back of his head.

"I will shower first. I don't want your disgusting pubes under my feet again." Ilya slipped out of bed and Cliff smiled.

"You know you like it, Lily!"

Ilya glowered at Cliff. He grabbed the pillow off his bed and threw it in Cliff's face, before disappearing into the small bathroom.

Cliff sighed defeatedly and got out of bed, too. They were due at the airport in two hours, but would probably need to rouse one or five players in the meantime. Their bags needed to be packed and ready before then. Captain and Alternate, babysitters.

What if the babysitter is hungover and miserable, though?

Cliff hoped Ilya would recover enough to help dismantle Montreal's defense later in the day. They would need it. Hollander had lit a fire under his team and they were moving fast and determined.

Cliff shook his head as he remembered the latest drivel the tabloid press had pushed forward. The idea that Rose Landry, his global superstar of a girlfriend, was the fire under Shane Hollander. That he had been playing like a well-disciplined devil for the past weeks to make the actress happy. Cliff doubted that. Hollander didn't need anyone to make him play some of the best hockey the MLH had ever seen. Hollander was the shit. He was a machine with one setting: win.

Thank god, then, for Ilya Rozanov and the awful seasons Boston had played before his arrival, allowing the Raiders to clinch the prize in the 2009 draft. The best player Russia had ever produced had moved Boston into winning streak after winning streak, while Hollander had done the same for Montreal. The two of them, Hollander and Ilya, had started playing in the MLH the same year and had been inseparable ever since. They had been made to compete for fastest skater, best shooting accuracy, best player. Who would win in assists this year? And who would dominate the other in tonight's Montreal vs Boston game? Who was the best player in the league?

And although opinions and statistics could hardly agree on a winner, Cliff had made his own decision a long time ago. Biased, of course.

The best player in the league was taking his sweet damn time in the bathroom when the silence was suddenly interrupted by a loud 'fuck' and the sound of something falling into the sink.

"You alright, Roz?"

In response, Ilya opened the door, scowling deeply, as he left the steam-filled room.

"Yes," he said in a clipped voice as he sat at the foot of his bed. Cliff noticed his shoulders slump.

Ah fuck... Hollander is going to destroy us.... Goddamnit!

"What's up with you? Is it your dad?" Cliff asked. Good thinking, Marleau. Pretend you don't know shit.

Ilya put his backpack on his bed and started rummaging in it aimlessly.

"Why do you ask, Marly? Am okay. Everything is okay."

"The fuck you are, Roz. You look miserable!"

"Is just seeing your face everyday. Makes me so very angry!"

"I'm worried about you, Ilya!"

"No... You shouldn't... I don't-" Ilya shook his head and went to the bathroom to retrieve his toiletry bag, which he jammed into his backpack. He sighed and looked up at Cliff. "Am okay. I am hungover. I will be better. Don't worry. I'm okay."

Cliff nodded. How many fake 'okays' does it take for you to call for an intervention?

"You'd better or I'll fucking skate into you and break your legs or something. You'd have to take a beat and rest for once. You look like shit, Rozy."

"Ah no, Marly! I look perfect. Don't insult me, you fucking moron."

Cliff huffed a laugh and headed into the bathroom, leaving Ilya to his backpack. He frowned as he noticed a half-empty bottle of lube in the trash can but chose not to mention it to Ilya. The man was not fine, however many lies he told himself and others. And if throwing away the remnants of this Jane thing in the trash could help, Cliff wouldn't stop him. Cliff couldn't do anything about the dreams Ilya had about her, but he sure as fuck wouldn't remind Ilya of what he'd had while he was awake. Better to let it rest.

Especially with Hollander and the fuckers up in Montreal who were waiting for them, fueled by Rose Landry's tits or something.

When Cliff left the bathroom, Ilya was gone. He hadn't heard the door open and Ilya was usually polite to a T, so the quiet departure did nothing to alleviate his worry. Should he talk to LeClaire? Ilya was a ticking time bomb that would either explode in tears or in blood, more likely the latter, and Cliff needed to diffuse it. By any means necessary.

So he tried. He talked to their coach. He wasn't proud of it. But when Ilya disappeared into the team's bus, Cliff stayed behind to share his concern. LeClaire had noticed Ilya's attitude too but was quick to link it to Ilya's recent goals and fierceness on the ice. 'So let's not get too worried, Marleau. Ok?'

And on they went.

Ilya sat alone on the plane to Montreal, a pair of headphones firmly set over his ears. His knee bobbed up and down for a while. To the music in his ears or to the rhythm of his broken heart, Cliff couldn't say. Then Ilya fell asleep until his brain spent the usual ten seconds to bring him back to his misery, twenty minutes later.

If Ilya had felt Cliff's eyes on him, he hadn't shown it. But when Ilya asked to bunk with Connors instead of him, Cliff understood that Ilya was protecting himself, retreating. Ilya had let Cliff in, had let him see what was hidden. He was now closing shop.

The game against Montreal went as Cliff had expected it to go, which was nowhere. Zero to one. Ilya had spent most of their locker time holding his phone in his two hands and glaring at an invisible enemy. He had spent his time on the ice clenching his jaw like he wanted to crush his teeth under the pressure.

Hollander had been nowhere to be seen on the ice, either. That little fucker had led Pike to score the only goal, and had seemingly decided to play his worst game ever, on that same day. Ilya and him had barely interacted on the ice, which was strange. Ilya was always up in Hollander's business.

Cliff had seen Ilya stare at Hollander's jersey during one of the face offs, studying the M on the other player's chest. And Cliff had suddenly remembered that Jane was not just 'Fucking Jane'. She was Montreal Jane. She was there. Somewhere. In the arena or in the city. No wonder Ilya was fucked up.

Did Hollander have a similar excuse? The rumour in the Raiders locker room had been that Hollander might have been dumped by Rose Landry. She had not been in the stands this time, like she had been a few weeks prior, sporting his jersey and his name on her back. Hollander had looked somewhat happy then. At least as far as anyone could tell. Years of game face and press face had made it hard to discern anything tangible about Shane Hollander's emotions, but the sadness in his eyes today was harder to hide. Cliff had evaluated it at a three on the Ilya Rozanov Scale of Despair.

So THAT was what happened when the two best players in the league had their heart broken at the same damn time. A tragedy in three acts. Boy meets girl. Girl leaves boy. Boy fucks up his hockey stats.

Cliff wondered how long it would take for Ilya to go back to his old self, to get over Jane. It had been a few weeks already and Ilya wasn't showing signs of getting better. He was getting worse. So when Connors texted that Ilya wanted to go out after the game, Cliff wasn't surprised. He knew what had happened. Montreal Jane hadn't reached out. Ilya could plead in his sleep all he liked, it wasn't going to change anything.

Jane was gone and Ilya's heart with her.