Archive of Our Own

Zürych, Switzerland, 2015

Luca comes home from practice, exhaustion seeping from his body. All he wants to do is crawl into his bed and sleep for the next ten to thirteen hours straight. He greets his parents when he walks through the door, answering their questions with grunts, no energy left in his body to formulate proper sentences.

After nearly falling asleep in his mashed potatoes and nearly drowning in the shower, he finally makes it to his bed.

Trying to find the perfect spot to sleep in, his eyes get caught by the poster that hangs on the wall across. Ilya Rozanov positioned center front, leading the Boston Raiders whilst holding the puck. To his left stands Cliff Marleau, gazing straight forward. On the right, Victor St-Simon, following the puck with his eyes.

Luca has seen this poster so many times, every night really, yet he still looks at it as if it's the first time.

One day, he promises himself to tell Ilya how much he inspired him. Seeing him be first draft at the same time he started to take hockey more seriously made him really look up to him.

One day, he promises himself to be as confident and carefree as Rozanov. By then, he’d stop thinking about every single word coming from his mouth, and he’d be able to say what’s on his mind.

One day, he promises himself to tell someone the reason why he chose this poster, instead of the one featuring only his idol, whose eyes he stares at.

Ottawa Centaurs changing room, 2022

Luca is now playing his second season with the Centaurs, and he couldn’t be happier. His idol became his mentor, his idol’s husband is his friend, and he has a team around himself that feels like family.

He can feel himself standing taller, voicing his opinion more assuredly. He managed to convey to Ilya just how much he means to him as a player and as a person, rather spectacularly, which led the whole team to learn he had a poster of Ilya in his room. He is also more open about the reason for his poster. He is still trying to find the courage to say it aloud, but he’s not as closed off and defensive about it as he used to be.

Turns out hockey players are allowed to be in love with men, and even more shockingly, it turns out hockey players are allowed to be in love with other hockey players.
So whilst Cliff Marleau stares at him from the wall in his childhood home, he’s slowly letting his guard down.

So what if after scoring a beautiful goal during a game, the difference between men and women seems nonexistent? So what if he just wants to celebrate with whomever he finds hot? He’s allowed to do that now.

“Luca?... Hello?... Earth to Luca!” A waving hand in front of his eyes and apparently repeated inquiries cut through the haze of his thoughts.

“Uhm, yeah, what's up?”

“Daydreaming about Rozy's goal-scoring ability again?” Bood jabs at him.

“Well, it definitely wasn’t about yours Bood,” replies Luca easily, making a few of the others sitting near chuckle.

“I was asking if you were coming the day after today,” Ilya diverts their attention to him. Luca looks questioningly at his captain. Surely he didn’t mean the training, of course, he’d be there, what kind of a question is that?

Apparently, he looked confused and stayed silent for long enough to make Ilya speak again, “to our wedding anniversary party?” He explains while motioning between him and Shane. Luca likes Rozy, especially because he asks, even when everyone else would assume he would be first in line to spend more time with him.

“Oh yeah, of course, thanks for asking.”

He can’t wait, actually, since the Hollander-Rozanov duo invited the team, Luca has been perfecting a drawing to give them. Showing them at face-off, smiling wickedly at each other as they do every time during practice.

He hasn’t known Shane for long, but since he joined the team, they have become good friends. They found similarities in their nitty-gritty approach to the game, talking about strategies and tactics for hours and enjoying silences in between. He wanted to do something nice to show his appreciation.

The Hollander-Rozanov house, Ottawa, 2022

Going to Shane and Ilya's house still makes him nervous. Maybe it’s because he’s scared he’ll say the wrong thing, and they will discard him to the side. Maybe it’s because he loves this team so much and he’s scared of losing them.

Luca takes a steadying breath and enters, immediately greeted by the familiar warmth of laughter from the patio, which dissipates some of the nerves he feels.

“Hey Haasy, how’s it going?” asks Dykstra as he spots him from his place near the fridge, taking out a beer, “want one?”

“Yes, please,” he says as he extends his hand to take it from the defense player.

With his beer in hand, he starts walking to the porch, but before he reaches the outside, there’s a loud “ROZANOV, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?” coming from the entrance.

He freezes momentarily. He knows this voice. And when he looks up behind him, he recognizes the face. He knows the eyes that stared at him from the poster every night growing up.

“Fuck,” he mutters to himself. The nerves that he so preciously calmed down are now spiking his heartbeat.

One thing is admitting that you’re pansexual. A completely different thing is admitting that a large part of discovering your sexuality was Cliff fucking Marleau, who is standing right across from you in the room, greeting Ilya.

Luca stands frozen in his spot, not sure what to do with himself. Where is he even supposed to look? Years of teenage late nights tell him exactly where.

So he stands there, with a drawing under one arm, a bottle in the other, looking at his sexual awakening. He knows… he knows he should tear his gaze away. From the sharp cheekbones and the subtle stubble. From the furrowed brows and strong nose. From the plump lips and twinkling eyes.

He’s so focused on Marleau that he doesn’t hear Shane come behind him. He only acknowledges him when he feels a hand on his elbow and hears a quiet “you good?”

Luca finally looks at Shane, who is looking at him, a bit concerned and a lot amused.

“Hm? Yeah, sorry.”

Shane nods, and he takes it as permission to look back at Marleau. This time, when Luca’s eyes find his line of sight, their eyes meet. Almost like the Boston player could feel the eyes on him and wants to look at the person staring at him.

Before Luca gets the chance to panic and overthink what to do, he smiles as a form of greeting, as if he did not spend the last two minutes ogling him from across the room. As if this is normal behaviour.

Cliff, sporting his famous wide smile, lifts his chin as acknowledgement enough for the younger man.

“Jesus Christ,” Luca murmurs as he shakes his head to stop whatever thoughts are beginning to form at this brief encounter. Instead, he busies himself with looking for a place to put down his drawing.

Once he sets it down under the TV where no one seems to be walking, he starts taking slow, calming breaths to get his breathing and nerves back in line. I can get through this party; we don’t even know each other, so it’s not like there is a reason to interact. He reasons with himself.

“Are you even old enough to drink that?” a voice, he doesn’t want to think about recognizing, speaks behind him.

All that meditating breathwork gone to waste, as he lets out a startled yelp.

“Fuck you scared me,” he admits rather sheepishly while turning around, hoping the owner of that voice is someone else.

His luck is not so fortunate, because behind him, he sees all six feet three inches of steel muscle belonging to Marleau. Who chuckles amused, his tongue peeking through his teeth, “Maybe you’ve got a dirty consciousness then.”

Before Luca can think through his answer, he says, “you’re right, I stole this, don’t tell anyone.”

Marleau looks at him for a second and then bursts out in laughter.

“Cliff Marleau,” he says, extending his hand, “Ilya keeps telling me you’re the next big star player, so I wanted to see for myself.”

Luca accepts his hand. “Luca Haas,” definitely not thinking about the short but firm contact, as he mentally beckons himself to be brave, “what do you think then?”

Their hands separate. The young Centaur player urges all his nervous tics not show. Not now. Not in front of him.

“Don’t know yet, might just need to keep my eyes on you,” Marleau says, as if this sentence is not Luca’s biggest dream and biggest nightmare.

No nerves. No overthinking. Just confidence.

“You do that then,” no thoughts in Luca’s head at this point, “might even put on a show for you.”

He cringes inwardly. No thoughts indeed, because he just flirted with Cliff fucking Marleau. Ignoring each other is no longer a plan after this statement. He needs a new plan, Luca thinks to himself. Get as far as possible.

He gives another small smile to the man, grinning ear to ear now, hoping it will ease the damage he just did, and leaves for the outdoor patio.

Outside, he finally gets to greet the hosts of the evening and other attendees.

Everybody is sitting down around the porch, talking with each other, laughing, and arguing about nothing of consequence. And Luca is happy, his breathing evening out, he’s happy just to sit back and listen to his friends.

They share what they call ‘Hollanov war stories.’ How everyone found out or figured out parts of their love. Or how they caught them making out in various places. Trying to outdo who has had the craziest experience with them. Hayden Pike wins by a landslide.

Every now and then, Luca’s eyes betray him and steer towards Marleau. Who laughs the loudest, like he’s tempting everybody to look at him. And Luca listens every time.

As time passes, they shift to predictions about the upcoming season, which then turns into a discussion of general hockey. Swapping stories of the craziest goals, hardest checks, and, to Luca’s dismay, idols.

“Didn’t Walter Brotzy come to your game last year?” someone asks Marleau.

Everybody in the league has been jealous of the Boston Raiders. Walter Brotzy was the greatest hockey player. Retired from playing almost 30 years ago and from coaching for the last five, he now commentates on the games. However, every year he went to a few games in person. Every team hoped it would be on their home soil.

“Yeah, man, he even came to our dressing room, and I know he’s seen me play before on TV, but knowing he’s in the stands, I have never cared more about how I play. After the match, he told me, ‘You played a good game, Cliff.’ I wanted to get it tattooed.”

Luca’s traitorous heart softens at the sight of the overconfident player radiating almost child-like excitement over his idol seeing him play.

“Hey Haasy, how come you don’t have any of Rozy's compliments tattooed?” Dykstra jokes.

This conversation is going in the wrong direction. Luca’s eyes snap up, landing on Marleau on the way. Who is watching him with an amused, but questioning look. Luca has to change the topic quickly before the usual poster teasing starts up.

“Is he even old enough to get tattoos, though? That’s the question,” Bood answers before Luca can think of an appropriate retort. Thank God. He can work with a tattoo conversation.

“I do have a tattoo, you know, not Ilya themed, I’m surprised you never noticed.”

Hopefully, this bone he just gave them will throw them off the previous topic.

They never noticed, because Luca doesn’t show it off. He makes sure it’s not visible in photos. Whilst he might have been okay if his friends had seen and made assumptions based on it, confirming what they had probably already started to guess, he wasn’t ready for the public to reach the same conclusion.

There is an immediate rise in volume as the Centaurs start asking him questions about it.

Where is it? What is it? Does it have meaning?

Luca just sits back, “Well, if you haven’t noticed up until now, I don't know if I want to tell you.”

Let them get worked up, that way, they’ll forget how this started.

It seems it worked, as his teammates now come up with increasingly more ridiculous guesses.

“Wait… is Rozanov your idol?” Marleau asks like he hasn't just messed up Luca’s perfect distraction plan.

“Yeah, he even had a poster of him as a kid. Keep up, Clifford. We want to know more about this mysterious tattoo." Dykstra once again unknowingly throws him under the bus. Traitor.

“No, I want to know more about this poster.” Marleau has a wide shit-eating grin on his face.

Fuck. Abort. ABORT.

Luca knows his eyes go comically wide, his mouth hanging open. Marleau raises an eyebrow expectantly at him.

“It was just a poster with Ilya on it, because he’s my favorite player,” Luca says in a manner he hopes is calm. The majority of people here already know about it. It wouldn’t make sense to lie about it. Not that it hasn’t crossed his mind.

Ilya even smiles at him warmly, like he didn’t expect the present tense.

Across from him, Marleau looks surprised for a moment as if he didn’t expect Luca to be upfront about it. It doesn’t last long. A new emotion steps into his expression. Excitement, or something akin to it. He has the same look as a dog who just caught a whiff of a treat.

His eyes are too sparkly with it for Luca’s comfort levels. Especially when he sees Marleau opening his mouth, most likely to ask follow-up questions.

“It’s a quote, on my ribs,” he says way too quickly. His arm unconsciously touches his left side where those words sit.

Marleau shakes his head, slightly disappointed, but more intrigued than before. This can’t be good, Luca thinks, but the immediate threat is over. If it comes up again, it's a future Luca problem.

“Did you really think I had a marmot playing hockey on my ass?” He quickly engages Dykstra, who previously - proudly mind you - guessed this.

“What? Isn’t it the national Swiss animal?”

The conversation then picks up the flow it lost for a moment. It goes from tattoos to animals, to kids, and so on. Luca offers a few quips here and there, but never too much, so as not to redirect their attention back to him.

His beer runs out, so someone hands him another one. When it runs out as well, he gets up and walks to the fridge inside to get himself one and a ginger beer for Shane, who asked him for one.

“What are you hiding, rookie?”

The can Luca was holding slips from his hand.

“Stop doing that. For someone so famous for being loud, you sneak up behind people surprisingly quietly.” He says as he bends down to pick the can. He places it on the counter, because it's the polite thing to do, and to give himself time to settle down.

Marleau just laughs it off.

“Well, I was promised a show,” the grin on his face growing wider.

“I said ‘I might give you a show,’ that is not a promise,” Luca defends himself weakly.

Revealing that he remembers his exact wording from the disastrous exchange before should be more embarrassing, but he’s just going with it now.

He promised himself he would be more confident, though this is probably not the right time or place to start testing it out.

Instead of sending a kid who just learned to balance on skates on ice without bars, this is sending that kid against well… Cliff Marleau.

“Your panicked expression seemed intent on giving me a show when I asked about that poster.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Like you didn’t have any posters as a kid.”

“I did, Brotzy has watched me jerk-off all throughout my teenage years. Is that why you got so skittish, because Rozy might know?”

There are so many thoughts going through Luca’s head.

He can’t believe he admitted that he was being weird before, because of that poster. It was probably obvious, but he could’ve played dumb for a bit longer.

He’s also surprised at Marleau’s casual tone about a man watching him beat it. Luca’s heart speeds up at the possibility of Marleau swinging any other way than straight. He never heard anything about Marleau's sexuality, other than actual swinging stories, but those came with his famously endless sex drive, not a desire to sleep with men, as far as he knows.

Maybe it was an open secret he wasn’t privy to yet as a rookie, and he felt safe enough to talk about it here, with two queer couples present and all their friends. Luca knows that this is a very dangerous territory. He shouldn’t speculate on others' sexualities. Especially not Cliff Marleau’s, because hope can be more dangerous than wrongly guessing a hockey player is queer.

“Ilya has known about the poster for a year, so you know…” Luca shrugs non-committally.

The only reason he’s not panicking about Ilya knowing his poster version watched Luca masturbating is that he didn’t. That’s not whose eyes Luca searched for right before he came, whose eyes were currently watching him in their human form.

He is happy to talk in circles and half-formed sentences if it confuses the other man and discourages him from asking more questions, or, God forbid, from learning what this is really about.

With that, he grabs a new ginger beer, one that won't explode on Shane, and leaves.

The rest of the evening is, fortunately, calm. At some point, it gets cold enough outside to bring the men who spend most of their time on ice inside.

They give anniversary gifts to the happy couple. Shane compliments his drawing skills. Ilya tells him they will hang it on their wall. Luca braces himself for the poster jokes. None come. He thanks whoever made that happen. Marleau tells them his gift is his presence.

As the party naturally wraps up, guests start to leave. Those who have children at home go to relieve the nannies. The Pikes take their sleeping children to the hotel so they can sleep properly.

Luca also says his goodbyes to the remaining few and thanks the hosts again.

The Hollander-Rozanov front door, Ottawa, 2022

Cliff wouldn’t admit it to a living soul, least of all Rozanov, but he is happy Ilya found happiness and peace. He would also never admit it, but a small part of him envies the domestic bliss radiating from Rozanov, Hollander, and their house.

Don’t get him wrong, he loves his life. He loves casual sex. But having someone steady who understands all parts of him to share a house with sounds really nice.

When he walks out the door, he sees Luca Haas standing still, his phone lighting his face up.

Cliff was endlessly intrigued by the younger player he met today. He seemed very chill, for the lack of a better word in Cliff’s mind.

All Cliff knew about him was that he was a solid player from the few times they had played against each other, and Rozy sang his praises, which was saying something. He was known as an intelligent forward who kept mostly to himself.

In reality, he really didn’t say much, but when he did, he was funny and easy-going. That was with the others. When Cliff spoke to him, it seemed like his words were slightly outside of his baseline comfort zone, but even with some anxiety in his eyes, he seemed to be chill about it.

It drew Cliff in; he wanted to unsettle him, wanted to see him lose his cool again, like when he asked about the poster. He wanted to watch the show that might have been promised.

“What aren’t you telling about the poster?” He asked behind the Centaur.

It got him the desired reaction. Haas yelped a bit, startled by his voice.

“I do not know what you mean,” he turned around.

Cliff knew it was a lie. He would not be deterred. He will find out.

“There’s something you don’t want others to know about it,” Cliff was teasing, but also used a tone that left no opportunity for Haas to deny it again. For good measure, he added, “Once I asked more about the poster, you became evasive and stopped being so chill.” He waved his arm slightly accusingly at Haas.

“You think I’m chill?”

Cliff loved challenges. When he had to really try to achieve anything. When he had something to prove.

Playing with Rozy, he had to prove his skill every time, and he never had more fun than at that time. It pushed him to be better. He took every gym session, every match as an unwritten challenge to prove he was enough.

When he was at a club picking up women, he had one chance to show that it was a good investment to bring him home. He flirted as if those were his last words. He learned how to read a woman's expression to the smallest details, what gave her pleasure, what she wanted him to do, without having to voice it. He kissed and licked her, and he sucked her boyfriend off like they were gonna sew his mouth shut if he wasn’t worth it. And he never knew more pleasure.

Luca Haas being elusive was a new challenge, and from the moment he smiled at him from across the room, Cliff was determined to prove he was worthy of his sincere answers, and it was going to be fun and so pleasurable.

“See, you’re deflecting, so c’mon spill it,” he smelled a cookie, and he was gonna get it. “Was Rozanov half naked on it? Did it hang from your ceiling so it would be the last thing you saw before going to sleep and the first thing when you woke up?” Cliff was annoying, but he needed to know.

“Nope, Ilya was in full hockey gear, and it was on my wall like a normal person.”

“So what is it, Haas, c’mon, please tell me.”

“Didn’t know you knew the word, please. Why do you even care so much?”

“It’s intriguing, I’ll even say please again.”

Cliff doesn’t know when he lost the power in this conversation, but he didn’t like it.

“If I tell you which one it was, will you leave it alone? And no further questions.”

Haas finally surrenders. He absent-mindedly touches his left side, where he admitted to having a tattoo a few hours before. Maybe Cliff could ask about that next.

Given how skittish Haas has been acting up until now, it is odd that he would square up now. However, right now, Cliff would do anything to learn more about the aforementioned poster.

“Yes, scouts promise.”

“Were you even in the scouts?”

“Deflecting again.”

Haas takes a steadying breath before he speaks again.

“It was the 2011 Boston Raiders team poster.”

“That doesn’t sound as scandalizing,” Cliff says.

He thought it would be something worse with the way Haas was acting. He tries to remember the poster, after all, he was on the team by then.

He was on that team.

Not only that, but he has been the alternate captain since 2011.

His heart rate picks up inexplicably.

“Wait, was I on that poster?”

Cliff has met people who had posters of him, even players. But there is something about the eyes of Luca Haas that has him scrambling for more.

He thought he needed to know more about the poster before. It’s nothing compared to now.

There’s something about the possibility of this next big star looking up at him that makes him feel worthy, like he has proven something.

“Luca Haas, did you have me on your childhood bedroom wall on a poster?” He asks, schooling his tone to stay light and teasing.

“How long was I hanging there?”

He probably shouldn’t give away how much he needs to know. He does not care.

“On which wall was it?”

Haas’s eyes widen ever so slightly, like he hit the nail with this question.

“What did I see from that poster?”

His voice drops an octave without his consent. The teasing tone is gone.

Luca blushes.

And oh.

Cliff wants to see that shade again.

Something clicks in his brain. Haas has been okay with Ilya knowing, but the moment Cliff asked, he became flustered. And flustered has connotations.

“Am I the reason why you get all wired up about it?”

With each question, his voice becomes more serious and sincere.

“That’s a lot of questions for someone who promised not to ask.” Haas’s voice is shaking.

He held eye contact with Cliff.

“I said ‘might not’.”

Cliff is reminded of their first conversation.

He was promised a show.

“No, you didn’t.”

He wants that show.

“I wasn’t in the scouts.”

He wants to watch Haas. See if the blush stays on his face or runs down his body. He wants to know if he smiles as warmly when his hand travels down his body.

Another question pops into his mind.

“Did you bring the poster to Ottawa?”

His voice breaks completely. He’s pleading now. Desperate to prove he’s worthy.

“Say please again.”

And if he isn’t, let his paper version be.

“Please.”

Thank God, Rozanov was not there. Cliff knew he had been waiting since 2013 to catch him blushing, and blushing he was.

Haas looks like he’s considering his options. He puts his shoulders back. Looks deep into Cliff's eyes. His blood is rushing in his ears.

Please, he thinks. Let me see your eyes, let me see your blush, let me see you touch yourself.

“Goodnight, poster boy.”

With that, Haas gets in the Uber Cliff didn’t notice pull-up.

The car starts driving away, and he just stands there watching after it.

No. This is not how this ends.

Cliff refuses to let this be the end, so he runs back into the house.

“Hollander! Hollander!” He yells loudly.

Normally, he would go to his best friend for help, but it’s precisely because he’s his best friend that he calls for Hollander and not Rozy. He would probably kill him on the spot if he got even the smallest idea of Cliff wanting to talk to Haas.

“Why are you shouting Marleau for my husband like there is fire?” Ilya asks him slowly, probably convinced Cliff lost his mind.

“I need to ask him something, it’s urgent,” for once, he hopes Ilya won’t be difficult. He loves him like a brother. But as a brother, he also tends to be annoying when Cliff least needs it.

Ilya squints his eyes at him, looking for any indication of what this might be.

He reaches a conclusion: “You are blushing.”

“Fuck off, I’m not blushing, Cliff Marleau does not do that,” he answers almost petulantly.

“What’s going on?” Hollander asks from the kitchen. Cliff has never been more grateful for him, he really didn’t want to have to keep this conversation with Ilya.

“I need a favor,” he grabs Hollander's arm and tugs him back into the kitchen, away from Rozanov’s prying eyes.

Hollander raises an eyebrow at him.

“Where does Luca Haas live?”

Shane’s eyebrows shoot up so high they almost touch his hairline.

“Why?”

Which, yeah, that is a fair question. Cliff should have prepared an answer for that.

“I need to talk to him,” he scrambles for an excuse.

“About what?”

People often assume Cliff’s dumb based on his looks, occupation, and reputation, and he never cared what others think of him, but right now, he needs to prove them wrong.

“About… the drawing! Yeah, I want to talk to him about commissioning a drawing.”

He would really like to feel proud of this lie. Unfortunately, he’s not that dumb. He knows that Shane knows it was obviously a lie, as he stares at him, dumbfounded, questioning if Cliff is for real.

As Cliff learned today, when it comes to Luca Haas, he is not above begging.

“Please, Hollander, I would seriously owe you.”

Shane looks at his face, searching for something. Cliff has half a mind to not squirm under the judging gaze. Trying to appear as peaceful as ever, and not like his dick is twitching at any mention of Haas.

Apparently, he finds what he was looking for, as he nods.

“You’re blushing.”

Fuck his stupid life. And fuck these husbands who share one brain cell.

“It was a good drawing,” he answers dejectedly. Shane barks out a laugh at his expense.

“He lives at Rosemary 15,” he says with kindness in his voice, before using a more serious voice that sends chills down Cliff's body. “Do something stupid, and I will find you, and it won’t be pretty.”

Cliff absolutely believes him.

“Please give me a headstart before you tell Ilya.”

Shane measures him up again and then gives a single nod.

Rosemary 15, Ottawa, 2022

Cliff spent the entire ride mulling over his next words.

The Uber stops in front of a fancy-looking apartment complex. In all the dreaming and thinking he did on the way, he failed to consider that Luca lived in an apartment, not a house. It makes sense for the young, no longer rookie, to live in an apartment rather than a house. Hell, he lived in an apartment up until he was thirty.

He puts on the most charming smile he can muster up and walks up to the doorman.

“Good evening, sir. My name is Cliff Marleau, and I’m a hockey player. I have something urgent to discuss with Luca Haas, he told me he lives here.”

He tries his best to look sincere and respectable.

The doorman gives him a once-over. “I know who you are,” maybe he’s a fan, this shouldn’t be so bad, Cliff thinks to himself. “Your reputation precedes you.”

Right, so he is well and truly screwed.

Cliff has the decency to look shyly at the ground and nervously rub his neck at the mention of his notoriety.

“Sir, I assure you I am here on Mr. Haas’s invitation,” he lies.

Maybe this was a bad idea. What if Haas laughed at him? What if he kicks him out? Or worst of all, what if he tells Rozanov? The only hope that this is not an incredibly stupid idea is the blush on Luca’s cheeks and the way his eyes twinkled.

The doorman remeasures him, Cliff feels like this older man can see right through him, into the deep parts of his soul. Every secret he has, every buried feeling, every anxiety-inducing thought he ever had. He weighs all of Cliff's pros and cons before deciding his worth.

“Okay then, Mr. Marleau, but I will remember you.”

The doorman fixes him up with a frankly terrifying look that promises Cliff a gruesome death if he steps out of line.
“He lives on the third floor, second apartment on the right,” mistrust drips from his voice.

If he fucks this up, all of Ottawa will be on a hunt to kill, and leading the charge will be an elderly doorman and the Hollanov husbands.

The elevator ride feels like forever. He wipes his uncharacteristically sweaty hands into his pants before walking up to the door.

Cliff looks around nervously and takes a steadying breath as he rings the bell.

There is some noise coming from inside, before the door swings open to Haas, whose shirt he had on for tonight, is clearly unbuttoned, held together only by his hands in the middle. He’s holding it like a bathrobe across his chest, but it still gives Cliff a glimpse of his naked skin. He’s also wearing glasses and isn’t that a sight for Cliff’s sore eyes? They make those eyes that captivated him tonight appear ever so slightly larger.

“Marleau… What are you doing here?” Haas asks incredulously.

“Didn’t know you wear glasses,” Cliff says in a tone some might describe as dreamy.

“Oh,” he touches his glasses, as if he'd forgotten he had them on, “yeah, I was wearing lenses.”

“They suit you.” This is not playing it cool, but Marleau can’t stop the compliment before it leaves his mouth.

Luca’s cheeks turn light pink at it. He even awards Cliff with another smile, who finds himself wanting to bite the rosy parts.

They stare at each other, not sure what the next move is. It’s Haas who wakes up from his trance first.

“What are you doing here?”

Cliff plants his feet in the ground to ground himself.

“I was promised a show,” he sounds more confident than he feels. He also sounds more sultry than he intended.

“Marleau…” Haas warns, not fully sure if himself or Cliff.

“Haas,” Marleau says, hoping to ground them both.

He reaches his hand in the younger player's direction, not sure of the intention behind it. Maybe he’ll take it and Cliff with it. Maybe to signal him to open the shirt he’s clutching in his hands so that he can see even more of Haas’s skin.

“This is not a good idea,” Haas says, completely unconvinced.

“It really isn’t,” Cliff agrees.

“Well, get in, Marleau.”

He grabs Cliff's hand in his, tugs him over the threshold, and closes the door behind them.